souriezvssourisTell them apart

Quick tell: souriez is a verb, souris is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“souriez” is a verb and “souris” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#32,603
“souriez” frequency rank
#2,965
“souris” frequency rank
35568
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature souriez souris
Definition Deuxième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent de sourire. Petit rongeur de la famille des muridés.

Where the eye mixes souriez and souris

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. souriez runs 7 letters (CVVCVVC) against souris's 6 (CVVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
souriez
6 ch
souris

Why the eye confuses souriez with souris

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: souriez is \su.ʁi.je\ while souris is \su.ʁi\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35568, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

souriez is recorded at frequency rank #32,603, classified as averb, pronounced \su.ʁi.je\. 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 35568, this pair ranks #275,772 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of souriez vs souris

Shared letters: iorsu. Private to "souriez": ez. Private to "souris": -.

"souriez" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVVC  ·  "souris" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • souriez ← osuriez · soruiez · souirez · soureiz · souriezz · sourize · sourriez · ssouriez
  • souris ← osuris · soruis · souirs · souriss · sourris · soursi · ssouris · suoris

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "souriez" and "souris" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "souriez" is a verb and "souris" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "souriez" or "souris" show up more?
"souris" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,965 in our French list, against #32,603 for "souriez". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "souriez" 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 #275,772 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "souriez" and "souris" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sourdes vs souriez". 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 #275,772 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