souduresvssouriresConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#48,800
“soudures” frequency rank
#13,912
“sourires” frequency rank
62712
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature soudures sourires
Definition Pluriel de soudure. Pluriel de sourire.

Where the eye mixes soudures and sourires

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. soudures and sourires follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

8 ch
soudures
8 ch
sourires

Visual trap between soudures and sourires

A purely visual mix-up. soudures (\su.dyʁ\) and sourires (\su.ʁiʁ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62712, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

soudures is recorded at frequency rank #48,800, classified as anoun, pronounced \su.dyʁ\. sourires is at rank #13,912, tagged as anoun, pronounced \su.ʁiʁ\.

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 62712, this pair ranks #85,716 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of soudures vs sourires

Shared letters: eorsu. Private to "soudures": d. Private to "sourires": i.

"soudures" · 8 letters · shape CVVCVCVC  ·  "sourires" · 8 letters · shape CVVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • souduresosudures · soduures · souddures · soudrues · souduers · souduress · soudurres · soudurse
  • souriresosurires · soruires · souirres · souriers · souriress · sourirres · sourirse · sourries

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "soudures" for "sourires" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\su.dyʁ\ versus \su.ʁiʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "soudures" or "sourires" show up more?
"sourires" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,912 in our French list, against #48,800 for "soudures". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "soudures" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sourires" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #85,716 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "soudures" and "sourires" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "soudées 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 #85,716 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