Which to use
“sour” and “souris” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #35,736
- “sour” frequency rank
- #2,965
- “souris” frequency rank
- 38701
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | sour | souris |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Égout. | Petit rongeur de la famille des muridés. |
Where the eye mixes sour and souris
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. sour runs 4 letters (CVVC) against souris's 6 (CVVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses sour with souris
A purely visual mix-up. sour (\suʁ\) 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 differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “sour” sits inside “souris”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38701, 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\. 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 38701, this pair ranks #253,404 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of sour vs souris
Shared letters: orsu. Private to "sour": -. Private to "souris": i.
"sour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "souris" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "sour" for "souris" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "sour" or "souris" show up more?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "sour" 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 #253,404 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "sour" and "souris" 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 #253,404 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.