cloudvscourWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“cloud” and “cour” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#3,219
“cloud” frequency rank
#41,064
“cour” frequency rank
44283
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cloud cour
Definition A visible mass of water droplets suspended in the air. A three-month unit of television broadcasting, corresponding to one of the four seasons.

Where the eye mixes cloud and cour

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
cloud
4 ch
cour

Look-alike desk: cloud vs cour

A purely visual mix-up. cloud (/klaʊd/) 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 differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44283, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cloud is recorded at frequency rank #3,219, classified as anoun, pronounced /klaʊd/. 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 44283, this pair ranks #232,064 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cloud vs cour

Shared letters: cou. Private to "cloud": dl. Private to "cour": r.

"cloud" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC  ·  "cour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cloudccloud · clloud · clodu · cloudd · cluod · lcoud
  • courccour · coru · courr · cuor

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cloud" and "cour" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/klaʊd/ versus /ˈkʊə(ɹ)/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cloud" or "cour"?
"cloud" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,219 in our English list, against #41,064 for "cour". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "cloud" and "cour" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cloud" 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 #232,064 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cloud" 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 #232,064 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