Which to use
“sour” is a noun and “sourd” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #35,736
- “sour” frequency rank
- #10,411
- “sourd” frequency rank
- 46147
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | sour | sourd |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Égout. | Dont l’acuité auditive est diminuée de façon importante ou totale, en parlant d’une personne ou d'un animal. |
Same sound, different letters: sour vs sourd
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters. sour runs 4 letters (CVVC) against sourd's 5 (CVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Ear matches; page differs - sour and sourd
Say them out loud and nothing separates them: sour and sourd carry the same recorded pronunciation, \suʁ\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “sour” sits inside “sourd”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46147, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
sour is recorded at frequency rank #35,736, classified as anoun, pronounced \suʁ\. sourd is at rank #10,411, tagged as anadj, pronounced \suʁ\.
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 46147, this pair ranks #197,229 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of sour vs sourd
Shared letters: orsu. Private to "sour": -. Private to "sourd": d.
"sour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "sourd" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "sour" and "sourd" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "sour" or "sourd" show up more?
After this comparison
"sour" and "sourd" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "sour" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "sourd" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #197,229 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "sour" and "sourd" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sour vs suu". 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 #197,229 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.