Which to use
“soul” is an adjective and “sous” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #10,409
- “soul” frequency rank
- #115
- “sous” frequency rank
- 10524
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | soul | sous |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Repu, rassasié. | Sert à marquer la situation d’une chose à l’égard d’une autre qui est au-dessus, par-dessus, qui la couvre en totalité ou en partie. |
Same sound, different letters: soul vs sous
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 3 letters.
Ear matches; page differs - soul and sous
Say them out loud and nothing separates them: soul and sous carry the same recorded pronunciation, \su\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other apreposition, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by a single letter - l in “soul” becomes s in “sous”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10524, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
soul is recorded at frequency rank #10,409, classified as anadj, pronounced \su\. sous is at rank #115, tagged as aprep, pronounced \su\.
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 10524, this pair ranks #412,667 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of soul vs sous
Shared letters: osu. Private to "soul": l. Private to "sous": -.
"soul" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "sous" · 4 letters · shape CVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "soul" and "sous" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "soul" or "sous"?
What to do next
You've separated the homophone pair "soul" / "sous". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "soul" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "sous" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #412,667 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "soul" and "sous" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "soul vs suu". 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 #412,667 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.