cornvscouruWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#16,103
“corn” frequency rank
#9,459
“couru” frequency rank
25562
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature corn couru
Definition Corne. Fréquenté.

Letter map: corn vs couru

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

4 ch
corn
5 ch
couru

Grammar separator: corn vs couru

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: corn is anoun and couruanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25562, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

corn is recorded at frequency rank #16,103, classified as anoun. couru is at rank #9,459, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ku.ʁy\.

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 25562, this pair ranks #340,154 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of corn vs couru

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

"corn" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "couru" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cornccorn · conr · cornn · corrn · cron · ocrn
  • couruccouru · coruu · courru · couur · cuoru · ocuru

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "corn" and "couru" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "corn" is a noun and "couru" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "corn" or "couru" show up more?
"couru" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,459 in our French list, against #16,103 for "corn". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "corn" vs "couru" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "corn" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "couru" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #340,154 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "corn" and "couru" 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 #340,154 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