soupapevssourateWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#32,602
“soupape” frequency rank
#28,358
“sourate” frequency rank
60960
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature soupape sourate
Definition Petit levier ou languette à ressort obturant la circulation de fluide dans une pompe ou un tuyau en deçà d’une pression donnée. Chapitre du Coran.

Where the eye mixes soupape and sourate

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. soupape and sourate follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
soupape
7 ch
sourate

Visual trap between soupape and sourate

A purely visual mix-up. soupape (\su.pap\) and sourate (\su.ʁat\) 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 60960, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

soupape is recorded at frequency rank #32,602, classified as anoun, pronounced \su.pap\. sourate is at rank #28,358, tagged as anoun, pronounced \su.ʁat\.

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 60960, this pair ranks #94,838 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of soupape vs sourate

Shared letters: aeosu. Private to "soupape": p. Private to "sourate": rt.

"soupape" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVCV  ·  "sourate" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • soupapeosupape · sopuape · souappe · soupaep · soupappe · souppae · souppape · ssoupape
  • sourateosurate · soruate · souarte · souraet · souratte · sourrate · sourtae · ssourate

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "soupape" and "sourate" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\su.pap\ versus \su.ʁat\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "soupape" or "sourate" show up more?
"sourate" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,358 in our French list, against #32,602 for "soupape". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "soupape" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sourate" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #94,838 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "soupape" and "sourate" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "soupape vs soutane". 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 #94,838 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