courriervscourriersTell them apart

Which to use

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

#3,393
“courrier” frequency rank
#13,557
“courriers” frequency rank
16950
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature courrier courriers
Definition ou Celui qui courait la poste en avant des voitures pour préparer les relais. Pluriel de courrier.

Same sound, different letters: courrier vs courriers

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. courrier runs 8 letters (CVVCCVVC) against courriers's 9 (CVVCCVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
courrier
9 ch
courriers

Homophone desk: courrier vs courriers

This is the hard kind. courrier and courriers are pronounced identically (\ku.ʁje\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “courrier” sits inside “courriers”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16950, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

courrier is recorded at frequency rank #3,393, classified as anoun, pronounced \ku.ʁje\. courriers is at rank #13,557, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ku.ʁje\.

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 16950, this pair ranks #385,499 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of courrier vs courriers

Shared letters: ceioru. Private to "courrier": -. Private to "courriers": s.

"courrier" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVVC  ·  "courriers" · 9 letters · shape CVVCCVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • courrier ← ccourrier · corurier · courirer · courreir · courrierr · courrire · cuorrier · ocurrier
  • courriers ← ccourriers · coruriers · couriers · courirers · courreirs · courrierrs · courrierss · courriesr

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "courrier" for "courriers" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ku.ʁje\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Which is more common, "courrier" or "courriers"?
"courrier" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,393 in our French list, against #13,557 for "courriers". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

"courrier" and "courriers" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "courrier" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "courriers" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #385,499 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "courrier" and "courriers" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "courriers vs couturiers". 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 #385,499 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