coursevscourtWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: course is a noun, court is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“course” is a noun and “court” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#20,839
“course” frequency rank
#14,107
“court” frequency rank
34946
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature course court
Definition curso curto, breve, rápido

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set course and court apart are highlighted. They share 4 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

6 ch
course
5 ch
court

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: course is /koəɹs/, /kɔːɹs/ while court is /kuʁ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34946, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

course is recorded at frequency rank #20,839, classified as anoun, pronounced /koəɹs/, /kɔːɹs/. court is at rank #14,107, tagged as anadj, pronounced /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 34946, this pair ranks #32,201 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of course vs court

Shared letters: coru. Private to "course": es. Private to "court": t.

"course" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV  ·  "court" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • courseccourse · coruse · coures · courrse · coursse · cousre · cuorse · ocurse
  • courtccourt · corut · courrt · courtt · coutr · cuort · ocurt

Frequency comparison

course#20,839
court#14,107

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "course" and "court" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "course" is a noun and "court" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "course" or "court"?
"court" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,107 in our Portuguese list, against #20,839 for "course". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering course vs court

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Check the role first: if you need a noun, it's “course”; for an adjective, it's “court”.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “course” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list