soûlervssouplesConfusable pair

Quick tell: soûler is a verb, souples is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“soûler” is a verb and “souples” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#39,547
“soûler” frequency rank
#20,578
“souples” frequency rank
60125
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature soûler souples
Definition Rassasier jusqu’à l’excès, gorger de vin, de viande. Pluriel de souple.

Where the eye mixes soûler and souples

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. soûler runs 6 letters (CVVCVC) against souples's 7 (CVVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
soûler
7 ch
souples

Visual trap between soûler and souples

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: soûler is \su.le\ while souples is \supl\. 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 (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60125, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

soûler is recorded at frequency rank #39,547, classified as averb, pronounced \su.le\. souples is at rank #20,578, tagged as anadj, pronounced \supl\.

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 60125, this pair ranks #99,332 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of soûler vs souples

Shared letters: elos. Private to "soûler": rû. Private to "souples": pu.

"soûler" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "souples" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • souples ← osuples · sopules · soulpes · soupels · soupless · souplles · souplse · soupples

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "soûler" for "souples" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "soûler" is a verb and "souples" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "soûler" or "souples"?
"souples" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,578 in our French list, against #39,547 for "soûler". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "soûler" and "souples" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "soûler" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "souples" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #99,332 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "soûler" and "souples" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "soûler vs souleva". 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 #99,332 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list