copsvscousuTell them apart

Quick tell: cops is a noun, cousu is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“cops” is a noun and “cousu” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#39,241
“cops” frequency rank
#30,963
“cousu” frequency rank
70204
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cops cousu
Definition Enroulement de fils sur un tube cylindrique ou cylindro-conique. Lié par une couture.

Where the eye mixes cops and cousu

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

4 ch
cops
5 ch
cousu

Look-alike desk: cops vs cousu

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cops is \kɔps\ while cousu is \ku.zy\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 70204, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cops is recorded at frequency rank #39,241, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɔps\. cousu is at rank #30,963, tagged as anadj, 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 70204, this pair ranks #52,241 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cops vs cousu

Shared letters: cos. Private to "cops": p. Private to "cousu": u.

"cops" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "cousu" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cops ← ccops · copps · copss · cosp · cpos · ocps
  • cousu ← ccousu · cosuu · coussu · couus · cuosu · ocusu

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "cops" and "cousu" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cops" is a noun and "cousu" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "cops" or "cousu" show up more?
"cousu" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,963 in our French list, against #39,241 for "cops". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "cops" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cousu" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #52,241 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cops" and "cousu" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cops 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 #52,241 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