churnvscoursWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: churn is a verb, cours is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“churn” is a verb and “cours” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#26,369
“churn” frequency rank
#47,550
“cours” frequency rank
73919
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature churn cours
Definition To agitate rapidly and repetitively, or to stir with a rowing or rocking motion; generally applies to liquids, notably cream. three-month unit of television broadcasting corresponding to a natural season.

Letter map: churn vs cours

Shared letters muted; letters that set churn and cours apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. churn (CCVCC) and cours (CVVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
churn
5 ch
cours

Grammar separator: churn vs cours

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: churn is averb and coursanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 73919, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

churn is recorded at frequency rank #26,369, classified as averb, pronounced /tʃɜːn/. cours is at rank #47,550, tagged as anoun.

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 73919, this pair ranks #38,010 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of churn vs cours

Shared letters: cru. Private to "churn": hn. Private to "cours": os.

"churn" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "cours" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • churn ← cchurn · chhurn · chrun · chunr · churnn · churrn · cuhrn · hcurn
  • cours ← ccours · corus · courrs · courss · cousr · cuors

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "churn" and "cours" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "churn" is a verb and "cours" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "churn" or "cours" show up more?
"churn" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,369 in our English list, against #47,550 for "cours". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "churn" and "cours". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "churn" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cours" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #38,010 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "churn" and "cours" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cours vs Coutts". 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 #38,010 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list