soudurevssoufreWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“soudure” and “soufre” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#21,774
“soudure” frequency rank
#16,238
“soufre” frequency rank
38012
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature soudure soufre
Definition Action de souder ; le résultat de ce travail. Élément chimique de numéro atomique 16 et de symbole S qui fait partie des non-métaux, plus spécifiquement des chalcogènes.

Where the eye mixes soudure and soufre

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. soudure runs 7 letters (CVVCVCV) against soufre's 6 (CVVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
soudure
6 ch
soufre

Look-alike desk: soudure vs soufre

A purely visual mix-up. soudure (\su.dyʁ\) and soufre (\sufʁ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38012, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

soudure is recorded at frequency rank #21,774, classified as anoun, pronounced \su.dyʁ\. soufre is at rank #16,238, tagged as anoun, pronounced \sufʁ\.

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 38012, this pair ranks #258,331 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of soudure vs soufre

Shared letters: eorsu. Private to "soudure": d. Private to "soufre": f.

"soudure" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVCV  ·  "soufre" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • soudureosudure · soduure · souddure · soudrue · souduer · soudurre · souudre · ssoudure
  • soufreosufre · sofure · soufer · soufrre · sourfe · ssoufre · suofre

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "soudure" for "soufre" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\su.dyʁ\ versus \sufʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "soudure" or "soufre" show up more?
"soufre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,238 in our French list, against #21,774 for "soudure". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "soudure" and "soufre" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "soudure" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "soufre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #258,331 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "soudure" and "soufre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "soudure vs soudures". 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 #258,331 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list