sou
/suː/
sou noun: an old French copper coin equal to one twentieth of a livre or twelve deniers; one sou is to the livre as one shilling is to the pound.
Noun
sou (plural sous)
- An old French copper coin equal to one twentieth of a livre or twelve deniers; one sou is to the livre as one shilling is to the pound.
- He is grey, flat-footed and withered, with long, brittle nails that set your nerves on edge while he scrapes up your two sous.1918 February (date written), Katherine Mansfield [pseudonym; Kathleen Mansfield Murry], “Je ne parle pas français”, in Bliss and Other Stories, London: Constable & Company, published 1920, →OCLC...
- Cent; pocket money.
- A thing of the smallest value; a whit; a jot.
- I do not care a sou for your excuses.
Proper noun capitalized: Sou
Sou (plural Sous)
- A surname.
Forms of sou
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | sous |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Sous |
Origin of sou
Borrowed from French sou. Doublet of sol, sold, soldo, solid, solidus, and xu.
Questions about sou
- What does sou mean?
- Sou means an old French copper coin equal to one twentieth of a livre or twelve deniers; one sou is to the livre as one shilling is to the pound.
- What part of speech is sou?
- Sou can be a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce sou?
- Sou is pronounced /suː/.
- What is the plural of sou?
- The plural of sou is sous.
Words near sou in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: sou (page history and authors); Sou (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-sou.wav.
Cite this entry: “sou.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sou. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.