coupvscumTell them apart

Quick tell: coup is a noun, cum is a preposition, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“coup” is a noun and “cum” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#16,671
“coup” frequency rank
#7,027
“cum” frequency rank
23698
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature coup cum
Definition Treffen, Anschlag, Hieb, Schlag, Streich mit

Letter map: coup vs cum

Shared letters muted; letters that set coup and cum apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
coup
3 ch
cum

Grammar separator: coup vs cum

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: coup is anoun and cumapreposition. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23698, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

coup is recorded at frequency rank #16,671, classified as anoun, pronounced [ku]. cum is at rank #7,027, tagged as aprep.

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 23698, this pair ranks #1,857,822 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of coup vs cum

Shared letters: cu. Private to "coup": op. Private to "cum": m.

"coup" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "cum" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • coupccoup · copu · coupp · cuop · ocup

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "coup" and "cum" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "coup" is a noun and "cum" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "coup" or "cum"?
"cum" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,027 in our German list, against #16,671 for "coup". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "coup" and "cum".

  • Full dictionary entry for "coup" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cum" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,857,822 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "coup" and "cum" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "coli vs coup". 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 #1,857,822 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list