soundsvssourisTell them apart

Which to use

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

#40,022
“sounds” frequency rank
#2,965
“souris” frequency rank
42987
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sounds souris
Definition Pluriel de sound. Petit rongeur de la famille des muridés.

Where the eye mixes sounds and souris

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. sounds (CVVCCC) and souris (CVVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
sounds
6 ch
souris

Visual trap between sounds and souris

A purely visual mix-up. sounds (\saʊndz\) and souris (\su.ʁi\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42987, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sounds is recorded at frequency rank #40,022, classified as anoun, pronounced \saʊndz\. souris is at rank #2,965, tagged as anoun, pronounced \su.ʁi\.

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 42987, this pair ranks #221,442 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of sounds vs souris

Shared letters: osu. Private to "sounds": dn. Private to "souris": ir.

"sounds" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCC  ·  "souris" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sounds ← osunds · sonuds · soudns · soundds · soundss · sounnds · sounsd · ssounds
  • souris ← osuris · soruis · souirs · souriss · sourris · soursi · ssouris · suoris

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "sounds" for "souris" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\saʊndz\ versus \su.ʁi\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "sounds" vs "souris" - which ranks higher?
"souris" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,965 in our French list, against #40,022 for "sounds". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "sounds" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "souris" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #221,442 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sounds" and "souris" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sounds vs sourdes". 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 #221,442 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