Deutsch homophones

coup/Kuh/Q

"coup" is a noun; "Q" is a character - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #5 of 483 German groups.

Data vintage

Grammar picks the spelling

Same sound, different grammar: "coup" arrives as a noun, while "Q" is a character. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.

Spelling pairs in this cluster

  • No shared spelling stem: "coup" is 4 letters, "Kuh" is 3; only the sound ties them.
  • No shared spelling stem: "coup" is 4 letters, "Q" is 1; only the sound ties them.
  • No shared spelling stem: "Kuh" is 3 letters, "Q" is 1; only the sound ties them.

Orthographic DNA of this cluster

Shared letters across coup, Kuh, Q: none. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.

  • coup

    4 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVVC

    Inventory copu · private copu

  • Kuh

    3 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVC

    Inventory hku · private hku

  • Q

    1 letters · 0 vowels · shape C

    Inventory q · private q

Pick the spelling from the meaning

  • Write "coup" when you mean: Treffen, Anschlag, Hieb, Schlag, Streich
  • Write "Kuh" when you mean: Muttertier des Hausrinds
  • Write "Q" when you mean: 17. Buchstabe des lateinischen Alphabets, entspricht dem frühgriechischen Qoppa (später verschmolzen mit Kappa); kommt im Deutschen nur i…

Known mistypes of these spellings

Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.

  • coupccoup · copu · coupp · cuop · ocup

Each spelling

coup

noun · /ku/ · #16,671 frequency

Treffen, Anschlag, Hieb, Schlag, Streich

Kuh

noun · /kuː/ · #6,555 frequency

Muttertier des Hausrinds

Q

character · /kuː/ · #4,458 frequency

17. Buchstabe des lateinischen Alphabets, entspricht dem frühgriechischen Qoppa (später verschmolzen mit Kappa); kommt im Deutschen nur in der Verbindung qu (IPA: [kv], [kw]) vor

Nearby German homophone groups

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list