suppvssursWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: supp is a verb, surs is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“supp” is a verb and “surs” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#31,754
“supp” frequency rank
#45,900
“surs” frequency rank
77654
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature supp surs
Definition Deuxième personne du singulier de l’impératif présent de suppen. Masculin pluriel de l’adjectif sur.

Where the eye mixes supp and surs

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. supp and surs follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
supp
4 ch
surs

Why the eye confuses supp with surs

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: supp is \zʊp\ while surs is \syʁ\. 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 adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 77654, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

supp is recorded at frequency rank #31,754, classified as averb, pronounced \zʊp\. surs is at rank #45,900, tagged as anadj, pronounced \syʁ\.

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 77654, this pair ranks #27,782 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of supp vs surs

Shared letters: su. Private to "supp": p. Private to "surs": r.

"supp" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "surs" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • supp ← spup · ssupp · uspp
  • surs ← srus · ssurs · surrs · surss · susr

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "supp" and "surs" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "supp" is a verb and "surs" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "supp" vs "surs" - which ranks higher?
"supp" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #31,754 in our French list, against #45,900 for "surs". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "supp" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "surs" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #27,782 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "supp" and "surs" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "surs 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

Confusion rank #27,782 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