Which to use
“soufflé” is an adjective and “souffrez” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #14,800
- “soufflé” frequency rank
- #24,039
- “souffrez” frequency rank
- 38839
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | soufflé | souffrez |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qui est exagéré, surestimé. | Deuxième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent de souffrir. |
Where the eye mixes soufflé and souffrez
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. soufflé runs 7 letters (CVVCCCV) against souffrez'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 souffrez
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: soufflé is \su.fle\ while souffrez is \su.fʁe\. 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 38839, 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\. souffrez is at rank #24,039, tagged as averb, pronounced \su.fʁe\.
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 38839, this pair ranks #252,430 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of soufflé vs souffrez
Shared letters: fosu. Private to "soufflé": lé. Private to "souffrez": erz.
"soufflé" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCCV · "souffrez" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- souffrez ← osuffrez · sofufrez · soufferz · souffrezz · souffrrez · souffrze · soufrez · soufrfez
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "soufflé" for "souffrez" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "soufflé" or "souffrez" show up more?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "soufflé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "souffrez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #252,430 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "soufflé" and "souffrez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "souffres vs souffrez". 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 #252,430 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.