capesvscomesTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#28,860
“capes” frequency rank
#432
“comes” frequency rank
29292
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature capes comes
Definition plural of cape third-person singular simple present indicative of come

Where the eye mixes capes and comes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
capes
5 ch
comes

Look-alike desk: capes vs comes

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: capes is /keɪps/ while comes is /kʌmz/. 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 29292, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

capes is recorded at frequency rank #28,860, classified as anoun, pronounced /keɪps/. comes is at rank #432, tagged as averb, pronounced /kʌmz/.

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 29292, this pair ranks #364,171 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of capes vs comes

Shared letters: ces. Private to "capes": ap. Private to "comes": mo.

"capes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "comes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • capesacpes · caeps · capess · cappes · capse · ccapes · cpaes
  • comesccomes · cmoes · coems · comess · commes · comse · ocmes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "capes" for "comes" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "capes" is a noun and "comes" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "capes" or "comes" show up more?
"comes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #432 in our English list, against #28,860 for "capes". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "capes" and "comes" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "capes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "comes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #364,171 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "capes" and "comes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "capes vs cates". 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 #364,171 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list