chumvscohueWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“chum” and “cohue” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#18,959
“chum” frequency rank
#40,188
“cohue” frequency rank
59147
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature chum cohue
Definition Ami (sans idée d’amour). Nom du lieu où les petites justices, dans quelques provinces, se tenaient.

Where the eye mixes chum and cohue

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. chum runs 4 letters (CCVC) against cohue's 5 (CVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
chum
5 ch
cohue

Look-alike desk: chum vs cohue

A purely visual mix-up. chum (\tʃɔm\) and cohue (\kɔ.y\) 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 59147, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

chum is recorded at frequency rank #18,959, classified as anoun, pronounced \tʃɔm\. cohue is at rank #40,188, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kɔ.y\.

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 59147, this pair ranks #104,796 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of chum vs cohue

Shared letters: chu. Private to "chum": m. Private to "cohue": eo.

"chum" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "cohue" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • chum ← cchum · chhum · chmu · chumm · cuhm · hcum
  • cohue ← ccohue · choue · coheu · cohhue · couhe · ochue

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "chum" for "cohue" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\tʃɔm\ versus \kɔ.y\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "chum" or "cohue"?
"chum" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,959 in our French list, against #40,188 for "cohue". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "chum" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cohue" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #104,796 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "chum" and "cohue" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cohue vs conde". 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 #104,796 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