cordonvscoréenWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#9,457
“cordon” frequency rank
#6,695
“coréen” frequency rank
16152
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cordon coréen
Definition Petite corde, par exemple utilisée pour tirer un mécanisme, une sonnette, … → voir cordon de tirage et tirer le cordon Relatif à la Corée, à ses habitants et à leur culture.

Where the eye mixes cordon and coréen

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

6 ch
cordon
6 ch
coréen

Look-alike desk: cordon vs coréen

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cordon is \kɔʁ.dɔ̃\ while coréen is \kɔ.ʁe.ɛ̃\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16152, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cordon is recorded at frequency rank #9,457, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɔʁ.dɔ̃\. coréen is at rank #6,695, tagged as anadj, pronounced \kɔ.ʁe.ɛ̃\.

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 16152, this pair ranks #389,138 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of cordon vs coréen

Shared letters: cnor. Private to "cordon": d. Private to "coréen": .

"cordon" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "coréen" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cordonccordon · codron · corddon · cordno · cordonn · corodn · corrdon · crodon

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cordon" for "coréen" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cordon" is a noun and "coréen" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "cordon" or "coréen"?
"coréen" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,695 in our French list, against #9,457 for "cordon". 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 "cordon" and "coréen" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cordon" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "coréen" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #389,138 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cordon" and "coréen" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "coon vs cordon". 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 #389,138 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