cour

/\kuʁ\/ noun

Letters

4 characters

Frequency Rank

#669

in French word usage

Misspellings

5

tracked variants

Confusables

20

similar word pairs

cour is aFrenchnoun. It means: Espace découvert qui dépend d’une maison, d’un hôtel, etc., et qui est entouré de murs ou de bâtiments. Pronounced \kuʁ\. It ranks #669 in French word frequency. Often confused with CR and cul.

Key facts for cour
PropertyValue
Headwordcour
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\kuʁ\
Letters4
Frequency rank#669
Misspellings tracked5
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of cour in French word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for cour is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \kuʁ\. Corpus data places it at rank #669 in overall French word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 9 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 5 documented wrong-spelling variants for cour, with forms such as "ccour", "coru", and "courr". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "CR", "cul", "cru", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is cour, spelled C-O-U-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Espace découvert qui dépend d’une maison, d’un hôtel, etc., et qui est entouré de murs ou de bâtiments.
  2. 2
    Les maisons disposant d’une cour étant, par le passé, celles de personnages importants ou d’institutions, la cour désigne les assemblées qui s’y réunissent (cour du roi, cour de justice…), les dignitaires et autres personnes qui forment l’entourage habituel d’un souverain, la suite d’un grand seigneur, d’un prince. Se disait aussi des assemblées de vassaux que tenait le roi dans sa résidence.
  3. 3
    Entourage d’une personne, gens empressés à lui plaire.
  4. 4
    Le souverain et ses ministres ; le gouvernement d’une monarchie.
  5. 5
    Respects que l’on rend à une personne, assiduités que l’on a auprès d’elle, en vue de lui plaire, d’obtenir sa bienveillance, etc.
  6. 6
    Tribunal supérieur.
  7. 7
    Tribunal.
  8. 8
    Côté cour.
  9. 9
    Récréation.

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: ccour,coru,courr,cuor,ocur

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for cour

Misspelling Variants of "cour"

ccour5coru4courr5cuor4ocur4
Misspelling Variants of "cour"

Frequency rank: #669 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "cour"?
"cour" is spelled C-O-U-R. The IPA pronunciation is \kuʁ\.
What does "cour" mean?
As a noun, "cour" means: Espace découvert qui dépend d’une maison, d’un hôtel, etc., et qui est entouré de murs ou de bâtiments.
What words are commonly confused with "cour"?
"cour" is commonly confused with "CR", "cul", "cru". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "cour"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "cour" is \kuʁ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "cour" come from?
"cour" 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.

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter C in our French index:

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.