Which to use
“coursing” and “cousins” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #42,073
- “coursing” frequency rank
- #7,669
- “cousins” frequency rank
- 49742
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | coursing | cousins |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | The sport of chasing wild animals, especially hares, with dogs by sight rather than by scent. | The American intelligence services (from a British perspective) or the British intelligence services (from an American perspective). |
Letter map: coursing vs cousins
Shared letters muted; letters that set coursing and cousins apart highlighted. Shared run: 6. coursing runs 8 letters (CVVCCVCC) against cousins's 7 (CVVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Pair insight - coursing / cousins
coursing and cousins 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 49742, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
coursing is recorded at frequency rank #42,073, classified as anoun. cousins is at rank #7,669, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈkʌzn̩s/.
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 49742, this pair ranks #180,766 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of coursing vs cousins
Shared letters: cinosu. Private to "coursing": gr. Private to "cousins": -.
"coursing" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVCC · "cousins" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "coursing" for "cousins" ever safe?
Which is more common, "coursing" or "cousins"?
After this comparison
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "coursing" and "cousins".
- Full dictionary entry for "coursing" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "cousins" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #180,766 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "coursing" and "cousins" 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 #180,766 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.