coolsvscoulisTell them apart

Which to use

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

#22,813
“cools” frequency rank
#43,366
“coulis” frequency rank
66179
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cools coulis
Definition Masculin (et parfois féminin) pluriel de cool. Qui coule. N’est plus usité que dans la locution : Vent coulis : vent qui coule, qui se glisse au travers des fentes et des trous.

Where the eye mixes cools and coulis

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
cools
6 ch
coulis

Visual trap between cools and coulis

A purely visual mix-up. cools (\kul\) and coulis (\ku.li\) 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 66179, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cools is recorded at frequency rank #22,813, classified as anadj, pronounced \kul\. coulis is at rank #43,366, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ku.li\.

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 66179, this pair ranks #68,941 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cools vs coulis

Shared letters: clos. Private to "cools": -. Private to "coulis": iu.

"cools" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "coulis" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • coolsccools · colos · coolls · coolss · coosl · ocols
  • coulisccoulis · coluis · couils · couliss · coullis · coulsi · cuolis · oculis

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "cools" and "coulis" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\kul\ versus \ku.li\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "cools" vs "coulis" - which ranks higher?
"cools" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,813 in our French list, against #43,366 for "coulis". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "cools" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "coulis" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #68,941 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cools" and "coulis" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "coulis vs courais". 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 #68,941 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