succédervssuiciderWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#11,669
“succéder” frequency rank
#10,791
“suicider” frequency rank
22460
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature succéder suicider
Definition Venir après ; prendre la place de. Se tuer volontairement.

Where the eye mixes succéder and suicider

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. succéder (CVCCVCVC) and suicider (CVVCVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

8 ch
succéder
8 ch
suicider

Visual trap between succéder and suicider

A purely visual mix-up. succéder (\syk.se.de\) and suicider (\sɥi.si.de\) 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 22460, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

succéder is recorded at frequency rank #11,669, classified as averb, pronounced \syk.se.de\. suicider is at rank #10,791, tagged as averb, pronounced \sɥi.si.de\.

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 22460, this pair ranks #357,857 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of succéder vs suicider

Shared letters: cdersu. Private to "succéder": é. Private to "suicider": i.

"succéder" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC  ·  "suicider" · 8 letters · shape CVVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • suicider ← siucider · ssuicider · suciider · suiccider · suicdier · suicidder · suiciderr · suicidre

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "succéder" and "suicider" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\syk.se.de\ versus \sɥi.si.de\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "succéder" vs "suicider" - which ranks higher?
"suicider" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,791 in our French list, against #11,669 for "succéder". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "succéder" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "suicider" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #357,857 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "succéder" and "suicider" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "succéder vs succédera". 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 #357,857 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