coursvscurtWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: cours is a noun, curt is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#47,550
“cours” frequency rank
#23,505
“curt” frequency rank
71055
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cours curt
Definition three-month unit of television broadcasting corresponding to a natural season. Brief or terse, especially to the point of being rude.

Letter map: cours vs curt

Shared letters muted; letters that set cours and curt apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
cours
4 ch
curt

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: cours is anoun and curtanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71055, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cours is recorded at frequency rank #47,550, classified as anoun. curt is at rank #23,505, tagged as anadj, pronounced /kɝt/.

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 71055, this pair ranks #48,172 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cours vs curt

Shared letters: cru. Private to "cours": os. Private to "curt": t.

"cours" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "curt" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • coursccours · corus · courrs · courss · cousr · cuors
  • curtccurt · crut · currt · curtt · cutr · ucrt

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "cours" and "curt" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cours" is a noun and "curt" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "cours" or "curt"?
"curt" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,505 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.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "cours" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "curt" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #48,172 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cours" and "curt" 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list