sourisvssoutifWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#2,965
“souris” frequency rank
#36,162
“soutif” frequency rank
39127
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature souris soutif
Definition Petit rongeur de la famille des muridés. Soutien-gorge.

Where the eye mixes souris and soutif

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. souris and soutif follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
souris
6 ch
soutif

Look-alike desk: souris vs soutif

A purely visual mix-up. souris (\su.ʁi\) and soutif (\su.tif\) 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 39127, 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\. soutif is at rank #36,162, tagged as anoun, pronounced \su.tif\.

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 39127, this pair ranks #250,308 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of souris vs soutif

Shared letters: iosu. Private to "souris": r. Private to "soutif": ft.

"souris" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "soutif" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sourisosuris · soruis · souirs · souriss · sourris · soursi · ssouris · suoris
  • soutifosutif · sotuif · souitf · soutfi · soutiff · souttif · ssoutif · suotif

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "souris" and "soutif" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\su.ʁi\ versus \su.tif\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "souris" or "soutif"?
"souris" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,965 in our French list, against #36,162 for "soutif". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "souris" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "soutif" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #250,308 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "souris" and "soutif" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "soute vs soutif". 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 #250,308 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