courusvscourutWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#45,530
“courus” frequency rank
#42,809
“courut” frequency rank
88339
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature courus courut
Definition Participe passé masculin pluriel de courir. Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de courir.

Same sound, different letters: courus vs courut

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. courus and courut follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
courus
6 ch
courut

Homophone desk: courus vs courut

This is the hard kind. courus and courut are pronounced identically (\ku.ʁy\) and both work as averb. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by a single letter - s in “courus” becomes t in “courut”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 88339, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

courus is recorded at frequency rank #45,530, classified as averb, pronounced \ku.ʁy\. courut is at rank #42,809, tagged as averb, pronounced \ku.ʁy\.

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 88339, this pair ranks #7,126 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of courus vs courut

Shared letters: coru. Private to "courus": s. Private to "courut": t.

"courus" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "courut" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • courus ← ccourus · coruus · courrus · coursu · couruss · couurs · cuorus · ocurus
  • courut ← ccourut · coruut · courrut · courtu · courutt · couurt · cuorut · ocurut

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "courus" and "courut" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ku.ʁy\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
In ordinary French text, does "courus" or "courut" show up more?
"courut" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #42,809 in our French list, against #45,530 for "courus". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "courus" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "courut" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #7,126 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "courus" and "courut" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "courges vs courus". 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 #7,126 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