couard

\kwaʁ\

/\kwaʁ\/ adj

The verdict

“couard” is uncommon French (frequency #78,302 among 8,609 “C” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#78,302
frequency rank, French
8,609
“C” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Qui est poltron, qui n’a pas de courage.

Corpus desk

Index FR-couard · couard · French

couard · rank #78,302 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #78,302
  • LEN-LONG 6 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 8,609
  • PHOTO-FINISH coureuses

Nearest frequency peer: coureuses (+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.

Rangs de longue queue près de « couard »

Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court

corpus weight

What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « couard » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for couard
PropertyValue
Headwordcouard
LanguageFrench
Part of speechAdjective
IPA\kwaʁ\
Letters6
Frequency rank#78,302
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « couard » en français

Cette échelle va du noyau du français courant (gauche) jusqu'à la traîne des formes rares (droite).couardtombe dans cette queue de rareté:

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

Les tics avancent en logarithme; chacun est de l'ordre de dix fois plus rare. Voisins rares de la même bande: « coureuses » (#78,303), « cosmetics » (#78,300), « covoit » (#78,304). Parmi 8,609 lemmes en « C », « couard » est au #78,302. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

couard is uncommon French at frequency #78,302 among 8,609 “C” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed \kwaʁ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Qui est poltron, qui n’a pas de courage.".

The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for couard, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

No documented word history exists for this headword, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is couard, spelled C-O-U-A-R-D.

Definition

  1. 1
    Qui est poltron, qui n’a pas de courage.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Les orgueilleux fait humbles & courtois devenir, les couards faits hardis, & par contraires les hardis fait couards
  2. Ce ne sont pas les ripoux qui la protégeront, tous des couards, des corrompus!

Synonyms

This word in other languages

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 "couard"?
"couard" is spelled C-O-U-A-R-D. The IPA pronunciation is \kwaʁ\.
What does "couard" mean?
As an adjective, "couard" means: Qui est poltron, qui n’a pas de courage.
How do you pronounce "couard"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "couard" is \kwaʁ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "couard" come from?
"couard" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
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 "couard", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list