colorsvscoursWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#3,221
“colors” frequency rank
#47,550
“cours” frequency rank
50771
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature colors cours
Definition plural of color three-month unit of television broadcasting corresponding to a natural season.

Letter map: colors vs cours

Shared letters muted; letters that set colors and cours apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. colors runs 6 letters (CVCVCC) against cours's 5 (CVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
colors
5 ch
cours

Corpus notes: colors and cours

colors and cours are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50771, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

colors is recorded at frequency rank #3,221, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈkʌl.əz/. 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 50771, this pair ranks #171,301 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of colors vs cours

Shared letters: cors. Private to "colors": l. Private to "cours": u.

"colors" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC  ·  "cours" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • colors ← ccolors · cloors · collors · colorrs · colorss · colosr · colros · coolrs
  • cours ← ccours · corus · courrs · courss · cousr · cuors

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "colors" for "cours" ever safe?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "colors" or "cours"?
"colors" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,221 in our English list, against #47,550 for "cours". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "colors" vs "cours" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "colors" 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 #171,301 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "colors" 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 #171,301 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