courtvscouveWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#14,107
“court” frequency rank
#19,671
“couve” frequency rank
33778
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature court couve
Definition curto, breve, rápido planta hortense da família das crucíferas cujo nome científico é Brassica oleracea

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set court and couve apart are highlighted. They share 3 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

5 ch
court
5 ch
couve

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: court is /kuʁ/ while couve is /ˈkow.vɨ/. 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 (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33778, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

court is recorded at frequency rank #14,107, classified as anadj, pronounced /kuʁ/. couve is at rank #19,671, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈkow.vɨ/.

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 33778, this pair ranks #33,637 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of court vs couve

Shared letters: cou. Private to "court": rt. Private to "couve": ev.

"court" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "couve" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • courtccourt · corut · courrt · courtt · coutr · cuort · ocurt
  • couveccouve · couev · couvve · covue · cuove · ocuve

Frequency comparison

court#14,107
couve#19,671

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "court" and "couve" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "court" is an adjective and "couve" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "court" or "couve"?
"court" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,107 in our Portuguese list, against #19,671 for "couve". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering court vs couve

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Check the role first: if you need an adjective, it's “court”; for a noun, it's “couve”.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “court” 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