courroievscourroiesConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#28,901
“courroie” frequency rank
#46,682
“courroies” frequency rank
75583
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature courroie courroies
Definition Pièce de cuir ou d’étoffe, coupée en long, étroite, qui sert à lier, à attacher quelque chose. Pluriel de courroie.

Same sound, different letters: courroie vs courroies

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

8 ch
courroie
9 ch
courroies

Ear matches; page differs - courroie and courroies

This is the hard kind. courroie and courroies are pronounced identically (\ku.ʁwa\) 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) - “courroie” sits inside “courroies”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 75583, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

courroie is recorded at frequency rank #28,901, classified as anoun, pronounced \ku.ʁwa\. courroies is at rank #46,682, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ku.ʁwa\.

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 75583, this pair ranks #33,636 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of courroie vs courroies

Shared letters: ceioru. Private to "courroie": -. Private to "courroies": s.

"courroie" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVVV  ·  "courroies" · 9 letters · shape CVVCCVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • courroie ← ccourroie · coruroie · couroie · courorie · courrioe · courroei · cuorroie · ocurroie
  • courroies ← ccourroies · coruroies · couroies · courories · courrioes · courroeis · courroiess · courroise

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "courroie" and "courroies" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ku.ʁwa\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "courroie" vs "courroies" - which ranks higher?
"courroie" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,901 in our French list, against #46,682 for "courroies". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've separated the homophone pair "courroie" / "courroies". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "courroie" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "courroies" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #33,636 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "courroie" and "courroies" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "courrait vs courroie". 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 #33,636 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