cookvscoupConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#13,346
“cook” frequency rank
#226
“coup” frequency rank
13572
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cook coup
Definition Cuisinier. Impression que fait un corps sur un autre en le frappant.

Letter map: cook vs coup

Shared letters muted; letters that set cook and coup apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. cook and coup follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
cook
4 ch
coup

Corpus notes: cook and coup

cook and coup are indexed as a confusable French pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13572, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cook is recorded at frequency rank #13,346, classified as anoun. coup is at rank #226, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ku\.

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 13572, this pair ranks #400,442 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of cook vs coup

Shared letters: co. Private to "cook": k. Private to "coup": pu.

"cook" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "coup" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cookccook · cok · coko · cookk · ocok
  • coupccoup · copu · coupp · cuop · ocup

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cook" for "coup" ever safe?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "cook" or "coup"?
"coup" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #226 in our French list, against #13,346 for "cook". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "cook" vs "coup" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cook" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "coup" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #400,442 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cook" and "coup" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cook 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 #400,442 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