Which to use
“coal” and “cous” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #43,849
- “coal” frequency rank
- #38,734
- “cous” frequency rank
- 82583
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | coal | cous |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Braise (hot coals). | Pierre à aiguiser utilisée par les faucheurs. |
Where the eye mixes coal and cous
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. coal and cous follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: coal vs cous
A purely visual mix-up. coal (\kəʊl\) and cous (\kus\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 82583, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
coal is recorded at frequency rank #43,849, classified as anoun, pronounced \kəʊl\. cous is at rank #38,734, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kus\.
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 82583, this pair ranks #16,446 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of coal vs cous
Shared letters: co. Private to "coal": al. Private to "cous": su.
"coal" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "cous" · 4 letters · shape CVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "coal" and "cous" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "coal" or "cous"?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "coal" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "cous" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #16,446 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "coal" and "cous" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "coal vs coon". 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 #16,446 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.