sourvssucTell them apart

Which to use

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

#35,736
“sour” frequency rank
#44,755
“suc” frequency rank
80491
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sour suc
Definition Égout. Liquide organique animal.

Where the eye mixes sour and suc

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. sour runs 4 letters (CVVC) against suc's 3 (CVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
sour
3 ch
suc

Why the eye confuses sour with suc

A purely visual mix-up. sour (\suʁ\) and suc (\syk\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 80491, 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\. suc is at rank #44,755, tagged as anoun, pronounced \syk\.

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 80491, this pair ranks #20,779 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of sour vs suc

Shared letters: su. Private to "sour": or. Private to "suc": c.

"sour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "suc" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sour ← osur · soru · sourr · ssour · suor

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "sour" and "suc" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\suʁ\ versus \syk\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "sour" vs "suc" - which ranks higher?
"sour" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #35,736 in our French list, against #44,755 for "suc". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "sour" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "suc" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #20,779 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sour" and "suc" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "suc 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 #20,779 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