covscomsTell them apart

Which to use

“co” and “coms” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#617
“co” frequency rank
#48,668
“coms” frequency rank
49285
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature co coms
Definition Clipping of company. Combinations (underwear).

Letter map: co vs coms

Shared letters muted; letters that set co and coms apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

2 ch
co
4 ch
coms

Corpus notes: co and coms

co and coms are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “co” sits inside “coms”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49285, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

co is recorded at frequency rank #617, classified as anoun, pronounced /kəʊ/. coms is at rank #48,668, tagged as anoun.

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 49285, this pair ranks #185,096 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of co vs coms

Shared letters: co. Private to "co": -. Private to "coms": ms.

"co" · 2 letters · shape CV  ·  "coms" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • comsccoms · comms · comss · cosm · ocms

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "co" and "coms" be used interchangeably?
No. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “co” sits inside “coms”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary English text, does "co" or "coms" show up more?
"co" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #617 in our English list, against #48,668 for "coms". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pair "co" vs "coms" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "co" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "coms" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #185,096 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "co" and "coms" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cami vs coms". 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 #185,096 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