Which to use
“souffrent” is a verb and “soufre” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #7,904
- “souffrent” frequency rank
- #16,238
- “soufre” frequency rank
- 24142
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | souffrent | soufre |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Troisième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent du verbe souffrir. | Élément chimique de numéro atomique 16 et de symbole S qui fait partie des non-métaux, plus spécifiquement des chalcogènes. |
Same sound, different letters: souffrent vs soufre
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. souffrent runs 9 letters (CVVCCCVCC) against soufre's 6 (CVVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Ear matches; page differs - souffrent and soufre
Say them out loud and nothing separates them: souffrent and soufre carry the same recorded pronunciation, \sufʁ\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other anoun, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 3 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24142, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
souffrent is recorded at frequency rank #7,904, classified as averb, pronounced \sufʁ\. soufre is at rank #16,238, tagged as anoun, 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 24142, this pair ranks #348,340 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of souffrent vs soufre
Shared letters: eforsu. Private to "souffrent": nt. Private to "soufre": -.
"souffrent" · 9 letters · shape CVVCCCVCC · "soufre" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "souffrent" for "soufre" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "souffrent" or "soufre" show up more?
What to do next
You've separated the homophone pair "souffrent" / "soufre". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "souffrent" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "soufre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #348,340 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "souffrent" and "soufre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sofres vs soufre". 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 #348,340 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.