coût vs kou, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#1,767
“coût” frequency rank: #47,413
“kou” frequency rank: 49180
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	coût	kou
Definition	Ce qu’une chose coûte ; son prix de revient.	Tambour chinois.

Same sound, different letters: coût vs kou

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 1 letter. coût runs 4 letters (CVVC) against kou's 3 (CVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch

coût

3 ch

kou

Same sound, different spelling - coût / kou

This is the hard kind. coût and kou are pronounced identically (\ku\) 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 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49180, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

coût is recorded at frequency rank #1,767, classified as anoun, pronounced \ku\. kou is at rank #47,413, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ku\.

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 49180, this pair ranks #172,789 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of coût vs kou

Shared letters: o. Private to "coût": ctû. Private to "kou": ku.

"coût" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "kou" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "coût" for "kou" ever safe?

No. They are pronounced the same (\ku\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.

Which is more common, "coût" or "kou"?

"coût" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,767 in our French list, against #47,413 for "kou". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

Full dictionary entry for "coût" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "kou" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #172,789 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"coût" and "kou" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "kou vs ky". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #172,789 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.