cornvscourTell them apart

Which to use

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

#16,103
“corn” frequency rank
#669
“cour” frequency rank
16772
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature corn cour
Definition Corne. Espace découvert qui dépend d’une maison, d’un hôtel, etc., et qui est entouré de murs ou de bâtiments.

Letter map: corn vs cour

Shared letters muted; letters that set corn and cour apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

4 ch
corn
4 ch
cour

Spelling & dictionary notes on corn vs cour

corn and cour are indexed as a confusable French pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16772, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

corn is recorded at frequency rank #16,103, classified as anoun. cour is at rank #669, 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 16772, this pair ranks #386,315 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of corn vs cour

Shared letters: cor. Private to "corn": n. Private to "cour": u.

"corn" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "cour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cornccorn · conr · cornn · corrn · cron · ocrn
  • courccour · coru · courr · cuor · ocur

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "corn" and "cour" be used interchangeably?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "corn" or "cour"?
"cour" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #669 in our French list, against #16,103 for "corn". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "corn" and "cour".

  • Full dictionary entry for "corn" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cour" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #386,315 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "corn" and "cour" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ciro vs corn". 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 #386,315 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