cou

\ku\

/\ku\/ noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“cou” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #3,063) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#3,063
frequency rank, French
8,609
“C” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Partie du corps qui joint la tête aux épaules.

Corpus desk

Index FR-cou · cou · French

cou · rank #3,063 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-COMMON #3,063
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 8,609
  • PHOTO-FINISH Corée

Nearest frequency peer: Corée (-1 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Voisins de fréquence du confusable « cou »

Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « cou » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

cou vs CV
0% similar
cou vs Ct
0% similar
cou vs CP
0% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for cou
PropertyValue
Headwordcou
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\ku\
Letters3
Frequency rank#3,063
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « cou »

Cette échelle va du noyau du français courant (gauche) jusqu'à la traîne des formes rares (droite).couse place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Les tics avancent en logarithme; chacun est de l'ordre de dix fois plus rare. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « Corée » (#3,062), « critères » (#3,064), « considérer » (#3,061). Parmi 8,609 lemmes en « C », « cou » est au #3,063. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for cou is neighbouring look-alikes ("CV", "Ct", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \ku\. Frequency #3,063 among 8,609 “C” headwords. Gloss: "Partie du corps qui joint la tête aux épaules.".

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for cou, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "CV", "Ct", "CP", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.

No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct French form is cou, spelled C-O-U.

Definition

  1. 1
    Partie du corps qui joint la tête aux épaules.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how cou appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Son cou était un peu long peut-être ; mais ces sortes de cous sont les plus gracieux, et donnent aux têtes de femmes de vagues affinités avec les magnétiques ondulations du serpent.
  2. Dans cette agréable attitude, sa tête, inclinée vers son pied, étalait un cou de proconsul, large et fort, et laissait deviner l’ornière des omoplates, revêtues d’une chair brune et abondante.

This word in other languages

neck(English)cuello(Español)Hals(Deutsch)pescoço(Português)

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "cou"?
"cou" is spelled C-O-U. The IPA pronunciation is \ku\.
What does "cou" mean?
As a noun, "cou" means: Partie du corps qui joint la tête aux épaules.
What words are commonly confused with "cou"?
"cou" is commonly confused with "CV", "Ct", "CP". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "cou"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "cou" is \ku\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "cou" come from?
"cou" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "cou", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Ski#3,038pur#3,034lot#3,017bio#2,984

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list