couvscrowWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#3,063
“cou” frequency rank
#34,485
“crow” frequency rank
37548
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cou crow
Definition Partie du corps qui joint la tête aux épaules. Corneille.

Where the eye mixes cou and crow

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch
cou
4 ch
crow

Why the eye confuses cou with crow

A purely visual mix-up. cou (\ku\) and crow (\kɹəʊ\) 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 37548, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cou is recorded at frequency rank #3,063, classified as anoun, pronounced \ku\. crow is at rank #34,485, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kɹəʊ\.

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 37548, this pair ranks #261,716 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cou vs crow

Shared letters: co. Private to "cou": u. Private to "crow": rw.

"cou" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "crow" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • crowccrow · corw · croww · crrow · crwo · rcow

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cou" and "crow" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ku\ versus \kɹəʊ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "cou" vs "crow" - which ranks higher?
"cou" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,063 in our French list, against #34,485 for "crow". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cou" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "crow" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #261,716 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cou" and "crow" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ciro vs crow". 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 #261,716 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