recoupevsrecourtWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: recoupe is a noun, recourt is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“recoupe” is a noun and “recourt” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#42,567
“recoupe” frequency rank
#33,431
“recourt” frequency rank
75998
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature recoupe recourt
Definition Morceaux d’étoffe qui restent quand on taille des vêtements. Troisième personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de recourir.

Where the eye mixes recoupe and recourt

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. recoupe (CVCVVCV) and recourt (CVCVVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
recoupe
7 ch
recourt

Look-alike desk: recoupe vs recourt

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: recoupe is \ʁə.kup\ while recourt is \ʁə.kuʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 75998, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

recoupe is recorded at frequency rank #42,567, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁə.kup\. recourt is at rank #33,431, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁə.kuʁ\.

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 75998, this pair ranks #32,387 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of recoupe vs recourt

Shared letters: ceoru. Private to "recoupe": p. Private to "recourt": t.

"recoupe" · 7 letters · shape CVCVVCV  ·  "recourt" · 7 letters · shape CVCVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • recoupeercoupe · rceoupe · reccoupe · recopue · recouep · recouppe · recuope · reocupe
  • recourtercourt · rceourt · reccourt · recorut · recourrt · recourtt · recoutr · recuort

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "recoupe" and "recourt" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "recoupe" is a noun and "recourt" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "recoupe" or "recourt" show up more?
"recourt" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,431 in our French list, against #42,567 for "recoupe". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "recoupe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "recourt" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #32,387 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "recoupe" and "recourt" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "recoupe vs recouper". 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 #32,387 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