Which to use
“courbe” is an adjective and “cousue” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #5,745
- “courbe” frequency rank
- #39,728
- “cousue” frequency rank
- 45473
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | courbe | cousue |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qui n’est ni droit, ni composé de lignes droites. | Cigarette industrielle, déjà roulée, par opposition à celle que l’on roule soi-même. |
Where the eye mixes courbe and cousue
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. courbe (CVVCCV) and cousue (CVVCVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Look-alike desk: courbe vs cousue
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: courbe is \kuʁb\ while cousue is \ku.zy\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45473, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
courbe is recorded at frequency rank #5,745, classified as anadj, pronounced \kuʁb\. cousue is at rank #39,728, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ku.zy\.
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 45473, this pair ranks #202,466 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of courbe vs cousue
Shared letters: ceou. Private to "courbe": br. Private to "cousue": s.
"courbe" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV · "cousue" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "courbe" and "cousue" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "courbe" vs "cousue" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "courbe" and "cousue" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "courbe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "cousue" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #202,466 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "courbe" and "cousue" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "courus vs cousue". 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 #202,466 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.