Which to use
“cough” is a verb and “cours” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #7,668
- “cough” frequency rank
- #47,550
- “cours” frequency rank
- 55218
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | cough | cours |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Sometimes followed by up: to force (something) out of the lungs or throat by pushing air from the lungs through the glottis (causing a short, explosive sound), and out through the mouth. | three-month unit of television broadcasting corresponding to a natural season. |
Letter map: cough vs cours
Shared letters muted; letters that set cough and cours apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. cough and cours follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Role in the sentence - cough and cours
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: cough 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 55218, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
cough is recorded at frequency rank #7,668, classified as averb, pronounced /kɒf/. 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 55218, this pair ranks #135,255 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of cough vs cours
Shared letters: cou. Private to "cough": gh. Private to "cours": rs.
"cough" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC · "cours" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "cough" and "cours" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "cough" vs "cours" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "cough" and "cours".
- Full dictionary entry for "cough" 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 #135,255 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "cough" 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 #135,255 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.