kou
\ku\
The verdict
“kou” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #47,413) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #47,413
- frequency rank, French
- 737
- “K” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Tambour chinois.
Corpus desk
Index FR-kou · kou · French
kou · rank #47,413 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #47,413
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 737
- PHOTO-FINISH Konrad
Nearest frequency peer: Konrad (-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 « kou »
Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous
- Kirchner
Kirchner
52,592 corpus weight
- Kirkland
Kirkland
52,591 corpus weight
- Konrad
Konrad
52,589 corpus weight
- kou
kou
52,588 corpus weight
- labourer
labourer
52,586 corpus weight
- Lacey
Lacey
52,585 corpus weight
What this shows Les barres placent « kou » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.
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 | kou |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ku\ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #47,413 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Rang de corpus près des confusables de « kou »
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for kou is neighbouring look-alikes ("kW", "ku", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \ku\. Frequency #47,413 among 737 “K” headwords. Gloss: "Tambour chinois.".
kou doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "kW", "ku", "Ks", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct French form is kou, spelled K-O-U.
Definition
- 1Tambour chinois.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how kou appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
M. le ministre de l’Intérieur (don fait au Gouvernement par M. Hubert Serruys, consul général de Belgique en Chine) : deux instruments à percussion en bois en forme de grelot, avec leur percuteur ; un cha-pan, castagnettes formées de trois pièces de bois dur ; un lo-yang ou tam-tam mâle, avec percuteur ; une paire de seaou-po, cymbales ; un kou, sorte de…
Le Kou (4.b), au son sec et peu persistant, n’est qu’un tambourin très plat recouvert des deux côtés de peau de porc ; pour peu que les baguettes n’en atteignent pas exactement le milieu, c’est le son du bois que l’on perçoit.
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 "kou"?
What does "kou" mean?
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What language does "kou" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "kou", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).