survsSuzeWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: sur is a preposition, Suze is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“sur” is a preposition and “Suze” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#26
“sur” frequency rank
#46,469
“Suze” frequency rank
46495
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sur Suze
Definition Indique une position plus élevée. Commune française, située dans le département de la Drôme.

Where the eye mixes sur and Suze

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch
sur
4 ch
Suze

Why the eye confuses sur with Suze

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: sur is \syʁ\ while Suze is \syz\. 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 (preposition vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46495, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sur is recorded at frequency rank #26, classified as aprep, pronounced \syʁ\. Suze is at rank #46,469, tagged as aname, pronounced \syz\.

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 46495, this pair ranks #194,461 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of sur vs Suze

Shared letters: su. Private to "sur": r. Private to "Suze": ez.

"sur" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "Suze" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Suzessuze · suzze · szue · usze

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "sur" for "Suze" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sur" is a preposition and "Suze" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "sur" vs "Suze" - which ranks higher?
"sur" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26 in our French list, against #46,469 for "Suze". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "sur" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Suze" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #194,461 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sur" and "Suze" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "suu vs Suze". 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 #194,461 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