Which to use
“cous” and “crush” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #38,734
- “cous” frequency rank
- #24,169
- “crush” frequency rank
- 62903
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | cous | crush |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pierre à aiguiser utilisée par les faucheurs. | Attirance ; désir ; pulsion |
Where the eye mixes cous and crush
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. cous runs 4 letters (CVVC) against crush's 5 (CCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: cous vs crush
A purely visual mix-up. cous (\kus\) and crush (\kʁœʃ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62903, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
cous is recorded at frequency rank #38,734, classified as anoun, pronounced \kus\. crush is at rank #24,169, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kʁœʃ\.
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 62903, this pair ranks #84,656 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of cous vs crush
Shared letters: csu. Private to "cous": o. Private to "crush": hr.
"cous" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "crush" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "cous" and "crush" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "cous" vs "crush" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "cous" and "crush" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "cous" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "crush" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #84,656 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "cous" and "crush" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "coupa vs cous". 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 #84,656 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.