Which to use
“coughing” and “coursing” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #15,789
- “coughing” frequency rank
- #42,073
- “coursing” frequency rank
- 57862
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | coughing | coursing |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A cough; the act of coughing. | The sport of chasing wild animals, especially hares, with dogs by sight rather than by scent. |
Letter map: coughing vs coursing
Shared letters muted; letters that set coughing and coursing apart highlighted. Shared run: 6. coughing and coursing follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCCVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Pair insight - coughing / coursing
coughing and coursing 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 share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57862, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
coughing is recorded at frequency rank #15,789, classified as anoun. coursing is at rank #42,073, 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 57862, this pair ranks #116,434 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of coughing vs coursing
Shared letters: cginou. Private to "coughing": h. Private to "coursing": rs.
"coughing" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVCC · "coursing" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "coughing" for "coursing" ever safe?
Frequency check: "coughing" vs "coursing" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
You've compared "coughing" and "coursing". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "coughing" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "coursing" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #116,434 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "coughing" and "coursing" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "coursing vs cussing". 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 #116,434 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.