Which to use
“coulée” and “course” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #18,972
- “coulée” frequency rank
- #1,059
- “course” frequency rank
- 20031
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | coulée | course |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Action de s’écouler ; résultat de cette action. | Action de courir, mouvement de celui qui court. |
Where the eye mixes coulée and course
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between coulée and course
A purely visual mix-up. coulée (\ku.le\) and course (\kuʁs\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20031, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
coulée is recorded at frequency rank #18,972, classified as anoun, pronounced \ku.le\. course is at rank #1,059, 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 20031, this pair ranks #370,278 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of coulée vs course
Shared letters: ceou. Private to "coulée": lé. Private to "course": rs.
"coulée" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVV · "course" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- course ← ccourse · coruse · coures · courrse · coursse · cousre · cuorse · ocurse
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "coulée" and "course" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "coulée" or "course" show up more?
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 "coulée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "course" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #370,278 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "coulée" and "course" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "calée vs coulée". 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 #370,278 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.