Which to use
“souffre” and “souffrent” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #3,804
- “souffre” frequency rank
- #7,904
- “souffrent” frequency rank
- 11708
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | souffre | souffrent |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif du verbe souffrir. | Troisième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent du verbe souffrir. |
Same sound, different letters: souffre vs souffrent
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. souffre runs 7 letters (CVVCCCV) against souffrent's 9 (CVVCCCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Ear matches; page differs - souffre and souffrent
This is the hard kind. souffre and souffrent are pronounced identically (\sufʁ\) and both work as averb. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “souffre” sits inside “souffrent”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11708, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
souffre is recorded at frequency rank #3,804, classified as averb, pronounced \sufʁ\. 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 11708, this pair ranks #408,144 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of souffre vs souffrent
Shared letters: eforsu. Private to "souffre": -. Private to "souffrent": nt.
"souffre" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCCV · "souffrent" · 9 letters · shape CVVCCCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "souffre" for "souffrent" ever safe?
Which is more common, "souffre" or "souffrent"?
Useful next steps
You've separated the homophone pair "souffre" / "souffrent". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "souffre" 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 #408,144 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "souffre" and "souffrent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "souffrent vs souffrons". 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 #408,144 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.