cornesvscoursesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#13,556
“cornes” frequency rank
#2,568
“courses” frequency rank
16124
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cornes courses
Definition Pluriel de corne. Pluriel de course.

Where the eye mixes cornes and courses

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

6 ch
cornes
7 ch
courses

Why the eye confuses cornes with courses

A purely visual mix-up. cornes (\kɔʁn\) and courses (\kuʁs\) 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 16124, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cornes is recorded at frequency rank #13,556, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɔʁn\. courses is at rank #2,568, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kuʁs\.

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 16124, this pair ranks #389,274 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of cornes vs courses

Shared letters: ceors. Private to "cornes": n. Private to "courses": u.

"cornes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "courses" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cornesccornes · conres · corens · corness · cornnes · cornse · corrnes · crones
  • coursesccourses · coruses · couress · courrses · coursess · coursses · cousres · cuorses

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cornes" and "courses" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\kɔʁn\ versus \kuʁs\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cornes" or "courses"?
"courses" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,568 in our French list, against #13,556 for "cornes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cornes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "courses" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #389,274 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cornes" and "courses" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cornes vs courges". 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 #389,274 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