Which to use
“souder” is a verb and “soupir” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #28,752
- “souder” frequency rank
- #13,068
- “soupir” frequency rank
- 41820
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | souder | soupir |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Unir directement par le martelage ou la fusion autogène des parties en contact, de manière à n’en faire qu’une même pièce, en parlant des pièces de métal. | Expiration prolongée et souvent audible qu’on laisse échapper sous l’influence d’une émotion, d’un sentiment, tels que la tristesse, la surprise, le soulagement, l’exaspération, la déception ou d’une souffrance. |
Where the eye mixes souder and soupir
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. souder and soupir follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: souder vs soupir
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: souder is \su.de\ while soupir is \su.piʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41820, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
souder is recorded at frequency rank #28,752, classified as averb, pronounced \su.de\. soupir is at rank #13,068, tagged as anoun, pronounced \su.piʁ\.
Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.
With a confusion score of 41820, this pair ranks #230,264 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of souder vs soupir
Shared letters: orsu. Private to "souder": de. Private to "soupir": ip.
"souder" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC · "soupir" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "souder" for "soupir" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "souder" or "soupir" show up more?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "souder" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "soupir" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #230,264 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "souder" and "soupir" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "soler vs souder". Nearby pair
- Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes
Confusion rank #230,264 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.