Which to use
“gourde” and “gousse” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #26,747
- “gourde” frequency rank
- #41,314
- “gousse” frequency rank
- 68061
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | gourde | gousse |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Plante de la famille des cucurbitacées. | Fruit sec, dépourvu de cloison, à deux valves, garnies chacune d’une rangée de graines, et avec deux fentes de déhiscence (mot utilisé notamment pour les fruits des légumineuses). |
Where the eye mixes gourde and gousse
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. gourde and gousse follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between gourde and gousse
A purely visual mix-up. gourde (\ɡuʁd\) and gousse (\ɡus\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68061, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
gourde is recorded at frequency rank #26,747, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɡuʁd\. gousse is at rank #41,314, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɡus\.
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 68061, this pair ranks #60,763 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of gourde vs gousse
Shared letters: egou. Private to "gourde": dr. Private to "gousse": s.
"gourde" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV · "gousse" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "gourde" and "gousse" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "gourde" or "gousse" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "gourde" and "gousse" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "gourde" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "gousse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #60,763 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "gourde" and "gousse" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gauss vs gousse". 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 #60,763 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.