courusvscrusTell them apart

Quick tell: courus is a verb, crus is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“courus” is a verb and “crus” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#45,530
“courus” frequency rank
#11,557
“crus” frequency rank
57087
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature courus crus
Definition Participe passé masculin pluriel de courir. Masculin pluriel de cru.

Where the eye mixes courus and crus

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. courus runs 6 letters (CVVCVC) against crus's 4 (CCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
courus
4 ch
crus

Look-alike desk: courus vs crus

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: courus is \ku.ʁy\ while crus is \kʁy\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57087, 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\. crus is at rank #11,557, tagged as anadj, pronounced \kʁy\.

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 57087, this pair ranks #117,110 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of courus vs crus

Shared letters: crsu. Private to "courus": o. Private to "crus": -.

"courus" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "crus" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • courus ← ccourus · coruus · courrus · coursu · couruss · couurs · cuorus · ocurus
  • crus ← ccrus · crrus · crsu · cruss · curs · rcus

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "courus" and "crus" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "courus" is a verb and "crus" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "courus" or "crus" show up more?
"crus" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,557 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

Eye-level mix-up between "courus" and "crus" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "courus" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "crus" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #117,110 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "courus" and "crus" 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 #117,110 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