cousuvscousueWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: cousu is a adjective, cousue is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“cousu” is an adjective and “cousue” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#30,963
“cousu” frequency rank
#39,728
“cousue” frequency rank
70691
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cousu cousue
Definition Lié par une couture. Cigarette industrielle, déjà roulée, par opposition à celle que l’on roule soi-même.

Same sound, different letters: cousu vs cousue

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. cousu runs 5 letters (CVVCV) against cousue's 6 (CVVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
cousu
6 ch
cousue

Same sound, different spelling - cousu / cousue

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: cousu and cousue carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ku.zy\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other anoun, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “cousu” sits inside “cousue”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 70691, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cousu is recorded at frequency rank #30,963, classified as anadj, pronounced \ku.zy\. cousue is at rank #39,728, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ku.zy\.

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 70691, this pair ranks #50,406 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cousu vs cousue

Shared letters: cosu. Private to "cousu": -. Private to "cousue": e.

"cousu" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "cousue" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cousu ← ccousu · cosuu · coussu · couus · cuosu · ocusu
  • cousue ← ccousue · cosuue · couseu · coussue · couuse · cuosue · ocusue

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cousu" for "cousue" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cousu" is an adjective and "cousue" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "cousu" or "cousue"?
"cousu" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,963 in our French list, against #39,728 for "cousue". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "cousu" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cousue" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #50,406 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cousu" and "cousue" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "courus vs cousue". 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 #50,406 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