Which to use
“coutume” and “couture” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #8,832
- “coutume” frequency rank
- #8,088
- “couture” frequency rank
- 16920
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | coutume | couture |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Usage établi ; habitude contractée. | Action, art de coudre. |
Where the eye mixes coutume and couture
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. coutume and couture follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between coutume and couture
A purely visual mix-up. coutume (\ku.tym\) and couture (\ku.tyʁ\) 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 a single letter - m in “coutume” becomes r in “couture”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16920, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
coutume is recorded at frequency rank #8,832, classified as anoun, pronounced \ku.tym\. couture is at rank #8,088, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ku.tyʁ\.
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 16920, this pair ranks #385,638 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of coutume vs couture
Shared letters: ceotu. Private to "coutume": m. Private to "couture": r.
"coutume" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVCV · "couture" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "coutume" and "couture" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "coutume" or "couture"?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "coutume" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "couture" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #385,638 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "coutume" and "couture" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cousue vs coutume". 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 #385,638 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.