Which to use
“cause” and “cousue” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #332
- “cause” frequency rank
- #39,728
- “cousue” frequency rank
- 40060
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | cause | cousue |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Ce qui fait qu’une chose est ou s’opère. | Cigarette industrielle, déjà roulée, par opposition à celle que l’on roule soi-même. |
Where the eye mixes cause and cousue
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses cause with cousue
A purely visual mix-up. cause (\koz\) and cousue (\ku.zy\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40060, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
cause is recorded at frequency rank #332, classified as anoun, pronounced \koz\. cousue is at rank #39,728, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ku.zy\.
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 40060, this pair ranks #243,362 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of cause vs cousue
Shared letters: cesu. Private to "cause": a. Private to "cousue": o.
"cause" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV · "cousue" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "cause" and "cousue" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "cause" or "cousue" show up more?
Useful next steps
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "cause" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "cousue" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #243,362 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "cause" and "cousue" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "courus vs cousue". 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 #243,362 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.