soulevavssouleverWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“souleva” and “soulever” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#49,947
“souleva” frequency rank
#8,311
“soulever” frequency rank
58258
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature souleva soulever
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de soulever. Lever à une faible hauteur.

Where the eye mixes souleva and soulever

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. souleva runs 7 letters (CVVCVCV) against soulever's 8 (CVVCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
souleva
8 ch
soulever

Why the eye confuses souleva with soulever

A purely visual mix-up. souleva (\su.lə.va\) and soulever (\sul.ve\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58258, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

souleva is recorded at frequency rank #49,947, classified as averb, pronounced \su.lə.va\. soulever is at rank #8,311, tagged as averb, pronounced \sul.ve\.

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 58258, this pair ranks #110,105 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of souleva vs soulever

Shared letters: elosuv. Private to "souleva": a. Private to "soulever": r.

"souleva" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVCV  ·  "soulever" · 8 letters · shape CVVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • souleva ← osuleva · solueva · souelva · souleav · soulevva · soulleva · soulvea · ssouleva
  • soulever ← osulever · soluever · souelver · souleevr · souleverr · soulevre · soulevver · soullever

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "souleva" and "soulever" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\su.lə.va\ versus \sul.ve\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "souleva" vs "soulever" - which ranks higher?
"soulever" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,311 in our French list, against #49,947 for "souleva". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "souleva" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "soulever" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #110,105 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "souleva" and "soulever" 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 #110,105 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