soulignévssoulignerWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: souligné is a noun, souligner is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“souligné” is a noun and “souligner” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#7,905
“souligné” frequency rank
#6,138
“souligner” frequency rank
14043
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature souligné souligner
Definition Tiret bas. Tirer une ligne sous un mot, ou sous plusieurs mots.

Same sound, different letters: souligné vs souligner

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. souligné runs 8 letters (CVVCVCCV) against souligner's 9 (CVVCVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
souligné
9 ch
souligner

Homophone desk: souligné vs souligner

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: souligné and souligner carry the same recorded pronunciation, \su.li.ɲe\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14043, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

souligné is recorded at frequency rank #7,905, classified as anoun, pronounced \su.li.ɲe\. souligner is at rank #6,138, tagged as averb, pronounced \su.li.ɲe\.

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 14043, this pair ranks #398,434 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of souligné vs souligner

Shared letters: gilnosu. Private to "souligné": é. Private to "souligner": er.

"souligné" · 8 letters · shape CVVCVCCV  ·  "souligner" · 9 letters · shape CVVCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • soulignerosuligner · soluigner · souilgner · soulginer · souligenr · souliggner · soulignerr · soulignner

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "souligné" and "souligner" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "souligné" is a noun and "souligner" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "souligné" or "souligner"?
"souligner" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,138 in our French list, against #7,905 for "souligné". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "souligné" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "souligner" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #398,434 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "souligné" and "souligner" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "souligné vs soulignés". 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 #398,434 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