Which to use
“chou” and “cour” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #29,595
- “chou” frequency rank
- #41,064
- “cour” frequency rank
- 70659
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | chou | cour |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Choux pastry, usually in the form of a small round cake with a sweet filling. | A three-month unit of television broadcasting, corresponding to one of the four seasons. |
Where the eye mixes chou and cour
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: chou vs cour
A purely visual mix-up. chou (/ʃuː/) and cour (/ˈkʊə(ɹ)/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 70659, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
chou is recorded at frequency rank #29,595, classified as anoun, pronounced /ʃuː/. cour is at rank #41,064, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈkʊə(ɹ)/.
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 70659, this pair ranks #49,653 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of chou vs cour
Shared letters: cou. Private to "chou": h. Private to "cour": r.
"chou" · 4 letters · shape CCVV · "cour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "chou" and "cour" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "chou" vs "cour" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "chou" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "cour" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #49,653 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "chou" and "cour" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cour vs cower". 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 #49,653 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.