Which to use
“souffraient” and “souffrent” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #37,071
- “souffraient” frequency rank
- #7,904
- “souffrent” frequency rank
- 44975
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | souffraient | souffrent |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Troisième personne du pluriel de l’imparfait de souffrir. | Troisième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent du verbe souffrir. |
Where the eye mixes souffraient and souffrent
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 9 letters in sequence. souffraient runs 11 letters (CVVCCCVVVCC) against souffrent's 9 (CVVCCCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses souffraient with souffrent
A purely visual mix-up. souffraient (\su.fʁɛ\) and souffrent (\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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44975, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
souffraient is recorded at frequency rank #37,071, classified as averb, pronounced \su.fʁɛ\. souffrent is at rank #7,904, 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 44975, this pair ranks #206,365 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of souffraient vs souffrent
Shared letters: efnorstu. Private to "souffraient": ai. Private to "souffrent": -.
"souffraient" · 11 letters · shape CVVCCCVVVCC · "souffrent" · 9 letters · shape CVVCCCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- souffraient ← osuffraient · sofufraient · souffarient · souffraeint · souffraiennt · souffraientt · souffraietn · souffrainet
- souffrent ← osuffrent · sofufrent · souffernt · souffrennt · souffrentt · souffretn · souffrnet · souffrrent
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "souffraient" for "souffrent" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "souffraient" or "souffrent" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "souffraient" and "souffrent" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "souffraient" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "souffrent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #206,365 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "souffraient" and "souffrent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "souffraient vs suffiraient". 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 #206,365 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.