Which to use
“court” is a noun and “cut” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #370
- “court” frequency rank
- #569
- “cut” frequency rank
- 939
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | court | cut |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | An enclosed space; a courtyard; an uncovered area shut in by the walls of a building, or by different buildings; also, a space opening from a street and nearly surrounded by houses; a blind alley. | To incise, to cut into the surface of something. |
Where the eye mixes court and cut
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between court and cut
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: court is /kɔːt/ while cut is /kʌt/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 939, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
court is recorded at frequency rank #370, classified as anoun, pronounced /kɔːt/. cut is at rank #569, tagged as averb, pronounced /kʌt/.
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 939, this pair ranks #528,468 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of court vs cut
Shared letters: ctu. Private to "court": or. Private to "cut": -.
"court" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC · "cut" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- court ← ccourt · corut · courrt · courtt · coutr · cuort · ocurt
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "court" and "cut" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "court" or "cut"?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "court" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "cut" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #528,468 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "court" and "cut" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "CGT vs cut". 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 #528,468 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.