coyotevscoyotesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#27,024
“coyote” frequency rank
#30,964
“coyotes” frequency rank
57988
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature coyote coyotes
Definition Mammifère carnivore de la famille des canidés (Canis latrans), originaire d’Amérique du Nord, qui ressemble à un petit loup. Pluriel de coyote.

Same sound, different letters: coyote vs coyotes

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. coyote runs 6 letters (CVVVCV) against coyotes's 7 (CVVVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
coyote
7 ch
coyotes

Homophone desk: coyote vs coyotes

This is the hard kind. coyote and coyotes are pronounced identically (\kɔ.jɔt\) 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 extra letter(s) - “coyote” sits inside “coyotes”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57988, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

coyote is recorded at frequency rank #27,024, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɔ.jɔt\. coyotes is at rank #30,964, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kɔ.jɔt\.

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 57988, this pair ranks #111,709 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of coyote vs coyotes

Shared letters: ceoty. Private to "coyote": -. Private to "coyotes": s.

"coyote" · 6 letters · shape CVVVCV  ·  "coyotes" · 7 letters · shape CVVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • coyote ← ccoyote · cooyte · coyoet · coyotte · coytoe · coyyote · cyoote · ocyote
  • coyotes ← ccoyotes · cooytes · coyoets · coyotess · coyotse · coyottes · coytoes · coyyotes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "coyote" for "coyotes" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (\kɔ.jɔt\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "coyote" vs "coyotes" - which ranks higher?
"coyote" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,024 in our French list, against #30,964 for "coyotes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "coyote" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "coyotes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #111,709 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "coyote" and "coyotes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cocottes vs coyotes". 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 #111,709 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