cohuevscoulWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#40,188
“cohue” frequency rank
#40,696
“coul” frequency rank
80884
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cohue coul
Definition Nom du lieu où les petites justices, dans quelques provinces, se tenaient. Pouce.

Where the eye mixes cohue and coul

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

5 ch
cohue
4 ch
coul

Why the eye confuses cohue with coul

A purely visual mix-up. cohue (\kɔ.y\) and coul (\tsɔʊl\) 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 80884, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cohue is recorded at frequency rank #40,188, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɔ.y\. coul is at rank #40,696, tagged as anoun, pronounced \tsɔʊl\.

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 80884, this pair ranks #19,919 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cohue vs coul

Shared letters: cou. Private to "cohue": eh. Private to "coul": l.

"cohue" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "coul" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cohueccohue · choue · coheu · cohhue · couhe · ochue
  • coulccoul · coull · cuol · ocul

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cohue" and "coul" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\kɔ.y\ versus \tsɔʊl\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cohue" or "coul"?
"cohue" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #40,188 in our French list, against #40,696 for "coul". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "cohue" and "coul" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cohue" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "coul" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #19,919 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cohue" and "coul" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "coul vs coupa". 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 #19,919 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