Which to use
“source” and “sources” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #662
- “source” frequency rank
- #1,348
- “sources” frequency rank
- 2010
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | source | sources |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Point d’émergence naturelle d’eau, généralement souterraine, à la surface du sol. | Pluriel de source. |
Same sound, different letters: source vs sources
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters.
Homophone desk: source vs sources
This is the hard kind. source and sources are pronounced identically (\suʁs\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “source” sits inside “sources”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2010, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
source is recorded at frequency rank #662, classified as anoun, pronounced \suʁs\. sources is at rank #1,348, tagged as anoun, pronounced \suʁs\.
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 2010, this pair ranks #436,950 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of source vs sources
Shared letters: ceorsu. Private to "source": -. Private to "sources": -.
"source" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV · "sources" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "source" and "sources" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "source" or "sources"?
Useful next steps
You've separated the homophone pair "source" / "sources". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "source" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "sources" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #436,950 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "source" and "sources" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sofres vs sources". 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 #436,950 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.