courage
\ku.ʁaʒ\
The verdict
“courage” is a regularly-used French word, ranked #1,408 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #1,408
- frequency rank, French
- 7
- letters
- 9
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Capacité d'un humain ou un autre animal de vaincre sa peur pour braver le danger, supporter la souffrance, entreprendre des choses effrayantes, douloureuses ou difficiles.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | courage |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ku.ʁaʒ\ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #1,408 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “courage” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for courage is 7 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \ku.ʁaʒ\. Corpus data places it at rank #1,408 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 9 likely wrong-spelling variants for courage, with forms such as "ccourage", "coruage", and "couarge". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "course", "courte", "courbe", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is courage, spelled C-O-U-R-A-G-E.
Definition
- 1Capacité d'un humain ou un autre animal de vaincre sa peur pour braver le danger, supporter la souffrance, entreprendre des choses effrayantes, douloureuses ou difficiles.
- 2(Moderne) Capacité de ne pas avoir peur, face à une situation potentiellement effrayante (contraster avec sens nᵒ 1)
- 3Personnes courageuses.
- 4Dureté de cœur.
- 5Capacité d'agir, de se donner à ce qu'on fait ou doit faire.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ccourage,coruage,couarge,couraeg,couragge,courgae,courrage,cuorage,ocurage
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of courage - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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
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Using “courage”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is C-O-U-R-A-G-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \ku.ʁaʒ\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “course” - see the side-by-side comparison. courage vs course
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.