Which to use
“courent” and “coûtent” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #10,133
- “courent” frequency rank
- #12,137
- “coûtent” frequency rank
- 22270
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | courent | coûtent |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Troisième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent de courir. | Troisième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent du verbe coûter. |
Where the eye mixes courent and coûtent
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. courent and coûtent follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: courent vs coûtent
A purely visual mix-up. courent (\kuʁ\) and coûtent (\kut\) 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 22270, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
courent is recorded at frequency rank #10,133, classified as averb, pronounced \kuʁ\. coûtent is at rank #12,137, tagged as averb, pronounced \kut\.
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 22270, this pair ranks #358,916 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of courent vs coûtent
Shared letters: cenot. Private to "courent": ru. Private to "coûtent": û.
"courent" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVCC · "coûtent" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- courent ← ccourent · coruent · couernt · courennt · courentt · couretn · cournet · courrent
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "courent" and "coûtent" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "courent" or "coûtent" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "courent" and "coûtent" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "courent" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "coûtent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #358,916 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "courent" and "coûtent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "count vs coûtent". 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 #358,916 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.