sourisvssouritWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#2,965
“souris” frequency rank
#7,247
“sourit” frequency rank
10212
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature souris sourit
Definition Petit rongeur de la famille des muridés. Troisième personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de sourire.

Same sound, different letters: souris vs sourit

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters.

6 ch
souris
6 ch
sourit

Homophone desk: souris vs sourit

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: souris and sourit carry the same recorded pronunciation, \su.ʁi\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by a single letter - s in “souris” becomes t in “sourit”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10212, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

souris is recorded at frequency rank #2,965, classified as anoun, pronounced \su.ʁi\. sourit is at rank #7,247, tagged as averb, 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 10212, this pair ranks #413,807 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of souris vs sourit

Shared letters: iorsu. Private to "souris": -. Private to "sourit": t.

"souris" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "sourit" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sourisosuris · soruis · souirs · souriss · sourris · soursi · ssouris · suoris
  • souritosurit · soruit · souirt · souritt · sourrit · sourti · ssourit · suorit

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "souris" and "sourit" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "souris" is a noun and "sourit" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "souris" or "sourit" show up more?
"souris" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,965 in our French list, against #7,247 for "sourit". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've separated the homophone pair "souris" / "sourit". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "souris" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sourit" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #413,807 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "souris" and "sourit" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Soult vs sourit". 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 #413,807 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