suffisevssunriseTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#33,032
“suffise” frequency rank
#34,768
“sunrise” frequency rank
67800
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature suffise sunrise
Definition Première personne du singulier du présent du subjonctif de suffire. Lever de soleil.

Where the eye mixes suffise and sunrise

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. suffise and sunrise follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
suffise
7 ch
sunrise

Visual trap between suffise and sunrise

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: suffise is \sy.fiz\ while sunrise is \ˈsʌn.ɹaɪz\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67800, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

suffise is recorded at frequency rank #33,032, classified as averb, pronounced \sy.fiz\. sunrise is at rank #34,768, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈsʌn.ɹaɪz\.

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 67800, this pair ranks #61,867 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of suffise vs sunrise

Shared letters: eisu. Private to "suffise": f. Private to "sunrise": nr.

"suffise" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV  ·  "sunrise" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • suffisesfufise · ssuffise · suffies · suffisse · suffsie · sufifse · sufise · usffise
  • sunrisesnurise · ssunrise · sunirse · sunnrise · sunries · sunrisse · sunrrise · sunrsie

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "suffise" for "sunrise" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "suffise" is a verb and "sunrise" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "suffise" or "sunrise" show up more?
"suffise" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,032 in our French list, against #34,768 for "sunrise". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "suffise" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sunrise" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #61,867 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "suffise" and "sunrise" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "suffise vs suffixe". 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 #61,867 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