sousvssucWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: sous is a preposition, suc is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“sous” is a preposition and “suc” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#115
“sous” frequency rank
#44,755
“suc” frequency rank
44870
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sous suc
Definition Sert à marquer la situation d’une chose à l’égard d’une autre qui est au-dessus, par-dessus, qui la couvre en totalité ou en partie. Liquide organique animal.

Where the eye mixes sous and suc

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
sous
3 ch
suc

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: sous is \su\ while suc is \syk\. 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 (preposition vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44870, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sous is recorded at frequency rank #115, classified as aprep, pronounced \su\. suc is at rank #44,755, tagged as anoun, pronounced \syk\.

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 44870, this pair ranks #207,161 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of sous vs suc

Shared letters: su. Private to "sous": o. Private to "suc": c.

"sous" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "suc" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sousosus · sosu · souss · ssous · suos

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "sous" and "suc" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sous" is a preposition and "suc" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "sous" or "suc"?
"sous" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #115 in our French list, against #44,755 for "suc". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "sous" and "suc". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sous" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "suc" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #207,161 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sous" and "suc" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "suc vs suu". 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list