Which to use
“soufflé” is an adjective and “souffres” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #14,800
- “soufflé” frequency rank
- #35,287
- “souffres” frequency rank
- 50087
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | soufflé | souffres |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qui est exagéré, surestimé. | Deuxième personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent du verbe souffrir. |
Where the eye mixes soufflé and souffres
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. soufflé runs 7 letters (CVVCCCV) against souffres's 8 (CVVCCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses soufflé with souffres
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: soufflé is \su.fle\ while souffres is \sufʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50087, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
soufflé is recorded at frequency rank #14,800, classified as anadj, pronounced \su.fle\. souffres is at rank #35,287, tagged as averb, 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 50087, this pair ranks #165,416 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of soufflé vs souffres
Shared letters: fosu. Private to "soufflé": lé. Private to "souffres": er.
"soufflé" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCCV · "souffres" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- souffres ← osuffres · sofufres · souffers · souffress · souffrres · souffrse · soufres · soufrfes
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "soufflé" and "souffres" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "soufflé" or "souffres" show up more?
Useful next steps
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "soufflé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "souffres" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #165,416 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "soufflé" and "souffres" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sofres vs souffres". 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 #165,416 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.