coldvscoliTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#18,848
“cold” frequency rank
#47,301
“coli” frequency rank
66149
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cold coli
Definition kalt Genitiv Singular des Substantivs cola

Letter map: cold vs coli

Shared letters muted; letters that set cold and coli apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

4 ch
cold
4 ch
coli

Role in the sentence - cold and coli

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: cold is anadjective and colianoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - d in “cold” becomes i in “coli”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 66149, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cold is recorded at frequency rank #18,848, classified as anadj, pronounced [kəʊld]. coli is at rank #47,301, tagged as anoun, pronounced […].

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 66149, this pair ranks #582,959 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cold vs coli

Shared letters: clo. Private to "cold": d. Private to "coli": i.

"cold" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "coli" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • coldccold · clod · codl · coldd · colld · ocld
  • coliccoli · cloi · coil · colli · ocli

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cold" for "coli" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cold" is an adjective and "coli" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "cold" or "coli"?
"cold" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,848 in our German list, against #47,301 for "coli". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "cold" and "coli".

  • Full dictionary entry for "cold" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "coli" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #582,959 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cold" and "coli" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "coli vs puzzles". 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 #582,959 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list