soupirvssoutifConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#13,068
“soupir” frequency rank
#36,162
“soutif” frequency rank
49230
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature soupir soutif
Definition Expiration prolongée et souvent audible qu’on laisse échapper sous l’influence d’une émotion, d’un sentiment, tels que la tristesse, la surprise, le soulagement, l’exaspération, la déception ou d’une souffrance. Soutien-gorge.

Where the eye mixes soupir and soutif

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. soupir and soutif follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
soupir
6 ch
soutif

Visual trap between soupir and soutif

A purely visual mix-up. soupir (\su.piʁ\) and soutif (\su.tif\) 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 49230, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

soupir is recorded at frequency rank #13,068, classified as anoun, pronounced \su.piʁ\. soutif is at rank #36,162, tagged as anoun, pronounced \su.tif\.

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 49230, this pair ranks #172,344 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of soupir vs soutif

Shared letters: iosu. Private to "soupir": pr. Private to "soutif": ft.

"soupir" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "soutif" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • soupirosupir · sopuir · souipr · soupirr · souppir · soupri · ssoupir · suopir
  • soutifosutif · sotuif · souitf · soutfi · soutiff · souttif · ssoutif · suotif

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "soupir" for "soutif" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\su.piʁ\ versus \su.tif\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "soupir" or "soutif" show up more?
"soupir" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,068 in our French list, against #36,162 for "soutif". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "soupir" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "soutif" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #172,344 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "soupir" and "soutif" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "soute vs soutif". 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 #172,344 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