courgevscoursesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#30,546
“courge” frequency rank
#2,568
“courses” frequency rank
33114
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature courge courses
Definition Genre de plantes de la famille des Cucurbitacées (Cucurbitaceae). Pluriel de course.

Where the eye mixes courge and courses

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

6 ch
courge
7 ch
courses

Why the eye confuses courge with courses

A purely visual mix-up. courge (\kuʁʒ\) and courses (\kuʁs\) 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 33114, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

courge is recorded at frequency rank #30,546, classified as anoun, pronounced \kuʁʒ\. courses is at rank #2,568, 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 33114, this pair ranks #292,766 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of courge vs courses

Shared letters: ceoru. Private to "courge": g. Private to "courses": s.

"courge" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV  ·  "courses" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • courgeccourge · coruge · cougre · coureg · courgge · courrge · cuorge · ocurge
  • coursesccourses · coruses · couress · courrses · coursess · coursses · cousres · cuorses

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "courge" and "courses" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\kuʁʒ\ versus \kuʁs\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "courge" vs "courses" - which ranks higher?
"courses" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,568 in our French list, against #30,546 for "courge". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "courge" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "courses" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #292,766 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "courge" and "courses" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "courge vs curage". 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 #292,766 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