sourcevssourisWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#662
“source” frequency rank
#2,965
“souris” frequency rank
3627
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature source souris
Definition Point d’émergence naturelle d’eau, généralement souterraine, à la surface du sol. Petit rongeur de la famille des muridés.

Where the eye mixes source and souris

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
source
6 ch
souris

Look-alike desk: source vs souris

A purely visual mix-up. source (\suʁs\) 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 share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 3627, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

source is recorded at frequency rank #662, classified as anoun, pronounced \suʁs\. 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 3627, this pair ranks #433,579 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of source vs souris

Shared letters: orsu. Private to "source": ce. Private to "souris": i.

"source" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV  ·  "souris" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sourceosurce · soruce · soucre · sourcce · sourec · sourrce · ssource · suorce
  • sourisosuris · soruis · souirs · souriss · sourris · soursi · ssouris · suoris

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "source" and "souris" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\suʁs\ versus \su.ʁi\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "source" or "souris" show up more?
"source" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #662 in our French list, against #2,965 for "souris". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "source" 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 #433,579 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "source" and "souris" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sofres vs souris". 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 #433,579 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