CouriervscourreWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Courier is a name, courre is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Courier” is a name and “courre” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#40,201
“Courier” frequency rank
#38,733
“courre” frequency rank
78934
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Courier courre
Definition Nom d’une police à chasse fixe (monospace) rappelant une machine à écrire, et dont les empattements sont conçus pour éviter toute confusion entre deux caractères. Forme ancienne de courir jusqu’au XIIIᵉ siècle.

Letter map: Courier vs courre

Shared letters muted; letters that set Courier and courre apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.

7 ch
Courier
6 ch
courre

Part-of-speech tell for Courier / courre

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Courier is aname and courreaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 78934, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Courier is recorded at frequency rank #40,201, classified as aname. courre is at rank #38,733, tagged as averb, pronounced \kuʁ\.

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 78934, this pair ranks #24,479 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Courier vs courre

Shared letters: ceoru. Private to "Courier": i. Private to "courre": -.

"Courier" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVVC  ·  "courre" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Courierccourier · coruier · couirer · coureir · courierr · courire · cuorier · ocurier
  • courreccourre · corure · coure · courer · cuorre · ocurre

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Courier" and "courre" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Courier" is a name and "courre" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Courier" vs "courre" - which ranks higher?
"courre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #38,733 in our French list, against #40,201 for "Courier". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "Courier" vs "courre" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Courier" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "courre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #24,479 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Courier" and "courre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "courges vs Courier". 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 #24,479 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