cordéevscoudesConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#40,693
“cordée” frequency rank
#16,586
“coudes” frequency rank
57279
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cordée coudes
Definition Ce qui peut être entouré d'une corde. Pluriel de coude.

Where the eye mixes cordée and coudes

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

6 ch
cordée
6 ch
coudes

Look-alike desk: cordée vs coudes

A purely visual mix-up. cordée (\kɔʁ.de\) and coudes (\kud\) 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 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57279, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cordée is recorded at frequency rank #40,693, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɔʁ.de\. coudes is at rank #16,586, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kud\.

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 57279, this pair ranks #116,017 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cordée vs coudes

Shared letters: cdeo. Private to "cordée": . Private to "coudes": su.

"cordée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "coudes" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • coudesccoudes · codues · couddes · coudess · coudse · coueds · cuodes · ocudes

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "cordée" and "coudes" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\kɔʁ.de\ versus \kud\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "cordée" vs "coudes" - which ranks higher?
"coudes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,586 in our French list, against #40,693 for "cordée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "cordée" and "coudes" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cordée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "coudes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #116,017 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cordée" and "coudes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "conde vs cordée". 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 #116,017 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