Which to use
“courais” is a noun and “courait” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #49,582
- “courais” frequency rank
- #19,795
- “courait” frequency rank
- 69377
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | courais | courait |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel de courai. | Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de courir. |
Where the eye mixes courais and courait
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. courais and courait follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between courais and courait
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: courais is \ku.ʁe\ while courait is \ku.ʁɛ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - s in “courais” becomes t in “courait”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69377, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
courais is recorded at frequency rank #49,582, classified as anoun, pronounced \ku.ʁe\. courait is at rank #19,795, tagged as averb, pronounced \ku.ʁɛ\.
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 69377, this pair ranks #55,353 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of courais vs courait
Shared letters: acioru. Private to "courais": s. Private to "courait": t.
"courais" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVVC · "courait" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "courais" and "courait" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary French text, does "courais" or "courait" show up more?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "courais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "courait" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #55,353 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "courais" and "courait" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "courais 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 #55,353 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.