sucévssusWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: sucé is a adjective, sus is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“sucé” is an adjective and “sus” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#33,031
“sucé” frequency rank
#12,488
“sus” frequency rank
45519
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sucé sus
Definition Aspiré, léché. Dessus.

Where the eye mixes sucé and sus

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. sucé runs 4 letters (CVCV) against sus's 3 (CVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
sucé
3 ch
sus

Visual trap between sucé and sus

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: sucé is \sy.se\ while sus is \sys\. 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 (adjective vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45519, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sucé is recorded at frequency rank #33,031, classified as anadj, pronounced \sy.se\. sus is at rank #12,488, tagged as anadv, pronounced \sys\.

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 45519, this pair ranks #202,154 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of sucé vs sus

Shared letters: su. Private to "sucé": cé. Private to "sus": -.

"sucé" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "sus" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "sucé" for "sus" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sucé" is an adjective and "sus" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "sucé" vs "sus" - which ranks higher?
"sus" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,488 in our French list, against #33,031 for "sucé". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "sucé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sus" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #202,154 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sucé" and "sus" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sucé vs suu". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #202,154 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