cohuevscousueWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#40,188
“cohue” frequency rank
#39,728
“cousue” frequency rank
79916
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cohue cousue
Definition Nom du lieu où les petites justices, dans quelques provinces, se tenaient. Cigarette industrielle, déjà roulée, par opposition à celle que l’on roule soi-même.

Where the eye mixes cohue and cousue

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. cohue runs 5 letters (CVCVV) against cousue's 6 (CVVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
cohue
6 ch
cousue

Why the eye confuses cohue with cousue

A purely visual mix-up. cohue (\kɔ.y\) 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 79916, 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\. 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 79916, this pair ranks #22,155 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cohue vs cousue

Shared letters: ceou. Private to "cohue": h. Private to "cousue": s.

"cohue" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "cousue" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cohue ← ccohue · choue · coheu · cohhue · couhe · ochue
  • cousue ← ccousue · cosuue · couseu · coussue · couuse · cuosue · ocusue

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cohue" and "cousue" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\kɔ.y\ versus \ku.zy\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "cohue" or "cousue" show up more?
"cousue" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #39,728 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

Eye-level mix-up between "cohue" and "cousue" 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 "cousue" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #22,155 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cohue" and "cousue" 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 #22,155 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