cœursvscoeursWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: cœurs is a noun, coeurs is a typographic variant, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“cœurs” is a noun and “coeurs” is a typographic variant - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#6,946
“cœurs” frequency rank
#10,662
“coeurs” frequency rank
17608
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cœurs coeurs
Definition Pluriel de cœur. Pluriel de coeur.

Same sound, different letters: cœurs vs coeurs

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters. cœurs runs 5 letters (CVVCC) against coeurs's 6 (CVVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
cœurs
6 ch
coeurs

Same sound, different spelling - cœurs / coeurs

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: cœurs and coeurs carry the same recorded pronunciation, \kœʁ\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other atypographic variant, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17608, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cœurs is recorded at frequency rank #6,946, classified as anoun, pronounced \kœʁ\. coeurs is at rank #10,662, tagged as atypographic variant, pronounced \kœʁ\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 17608, this pair ranks #382,347 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of cœurs vs coeurs

Shared letters: crsu. Private to "cœurs": œ. Private to "coeurs": eo.

"cœurs" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "coeurs" · 6 letters · shape CVVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • coeurs ← ccoeurs · ceours · coerus · coeurrs · coeurss · coeusr · couers · oceurs

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cœurs" for "coeurs" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cœurs" is a noun and "coeurs" a typographic variant, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "cœurs" or "coeurs"?
"cœurs" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,946 in our French list, against #10,662 for "coeurs". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

"cœurs" and "coeurs" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cœurs" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "coeurs" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #382,347 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cœurs" and "coeurs" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "coeurs vs courus". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #382,347 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list