condevscosseWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#49,566
“conde” frequency rank
#33,195
“cosse” frequency rank
82761
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature conde cosse
Definition Comte. Enveloppe de la graine, gousse, écorce.

Where the eye mixes conde and cosse

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. conde and cosse follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
conde
5 ch
cosse

Look-alike desk: conde vs cosse

A purely visual mix-up. conde (\ˈko̞n.de̞\) and cosse (\kɔs\) 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 82761, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

conde is recorded at frequency rank #49,566, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈko̞n.de̞\. cosse is at rank #33,195, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kɔs\.

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 82761, this pair ranks #16,077 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of conde vs cosse

Shared letters: ceo. Private to "conde": dn. Private to "cosse": s.

"conde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "cosse" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • conde ← cconde · cnode · codne · condde · coned · connde · ocnde
  • cosse ← ccosse · cose · coses · csose · ocsse

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "conde" and "cosse" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ˈko̞n.de̞\ versus \kɔs\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "conde" vs "cosse" - which ranks higher?
"cosse" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,195 in our French list, against #49,566 for "conde". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "conde" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cosse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #16,077 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "conde" and "cosse" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "CNE 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 #16,077 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