Which to use
“coques” and “cours” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #16,585
- “coques” frequency rank
- #202
- “cours” frequency rank
- 16787
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | coques | cours |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel de coque. | Mouvement d’écoulement naturel dans l’espace. → voir cours d’eau et … |
Where the eye mixes coques and cours
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: coques vs cours
A purely visual mix-up. coques (\kɔk\) and cours (\kuʁ\) 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 16787, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
coques is recorded at frequency rank #16,585, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɔk\. cours is at rank #202, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kuʁ\.
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 16787, this pair ranks #386,246 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of coques vs cours
Shared letters: cosu. Private to "coques": eq. Private to "cours": r.
"coques" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC · "cours" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "coques" and "cours" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "coques" or "cours" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "coques" and "cours" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "coques" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "cours" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #386,246 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "coques" and "cours" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "codés vs coques". 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 #386,246 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.