sourvssukWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#35,736
“sour” frequency rank
#47,626
“suk” frequency rank
83362
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sour suk
Definition Égout. Nœud dans le bois.

Where the eye mixes sour and suk

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

4 ch
sour
3 ch
suk

Visual trap between sour and suk

A purely visual mix-up. sour (\suʁ\) and suk (\sʊk\) 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 83362, 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\. suk is at rank #47,626, tagged as anoun, pronounced \sʊk\.

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 83362, this pair ranks #14,977 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of sour vs suk

Shared letters: su. Private to "sour": or. Private to "suk": k.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "sour" and "suk" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\suʁ\ versus \sʊk\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "sour" or "suk"?
"sour" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #35,736 in our French list, against #47,626 for "suk". 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 "suk" 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 "suk" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #14,977 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sour" and "suk" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "suk 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 #14,977 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