Which to use
“sur” is a preposition and “surs” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #26
- “sur” frequency rank
- #45,900
- “surs” frequency rank
- 45926
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | sur | surs |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Indique une position plus élevée. | Masculin pluriel de l’adjectif sur. |
Same sound, different letters: sur vs surs
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 3 letters.
Ear matches; page differs - sur and surs
Say them out loud and nothing separates them: sur and surs carry the same recorded pronunciation, \syʁ\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is apreposition, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “sur” sits inside “surs”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45926, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
sur is recorded at frequency rank #26, classified as aprep, pronounced \syʁ\. 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 45926, this pair ranks #198,995 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of sur vs surs
Shared letters: rsu. Private to "sur": -. Private to "surs": -.
"sur" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "surs" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- surs ← srus · ssurs · surrs · surss · susr
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "sur" for "surs" ever safe?
Frequency check: "sur" vs "surs" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
"sur" and "surs" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "sur" 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 #198,995 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "sur" 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 #198,995 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.