English homophones
coo/coup
"coup" (#7,113 written frequency) beats "coo" (#19,567) in this 2-word /kuː/ cluster. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Frequency splits the cluster
These 2 spellings keep the same /kuː/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "coup" leads at #7,113, with "coo" trailing at #19,567.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "co" then splits - "coo" (3 letters) vs "coup" (4).
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across coo, coup: co. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
coo
3 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVV
Inventory co · no private letters vs siblings
coup
4 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVVC
Inventory copu · private pu
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "coo" when you mean: The murmuring sound made by a dove or pigeon.
- Write "coup" when you mean: A quick, brilliant, and highly successful act.
Known mistypes of these spellings
Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.
- coup ← ccoup · copu · coupp · cuop · ocup
Each spelling
Nearby English homophone groups
What to do next
You've reviewed the 2-spelling cluster (coo, coup). Here's where to go from here.
- "coup" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #7,113 in English). Full entry
- Among English homophone groups, a cluster of 2 spellings ranks #133 by size (1,007 groups in this vintage). Corpus statistics
- Explore a nearby 2-spelling cluster: coal · cole. Nearby cluster
- Each spelling in "coo, coup" has its own headword page with definition, IPA, and misspelling variants. First entry
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.