comesvscomethWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#432
“comes” frequency rank
#34,439
“cometh” frequency rank
34871
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature comes cometh
Definition third-person singular simple present indicative of come third-person singular simple present indicative of come

Where the eye mixes comes and cometh

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
comes
6 ch
cometh

Visual trap between comes and cometh

A purely visual mix-up. comes (/kʌmz/) and cometh (/ˈkʌm.əθ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34871, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

comes is recorded at frequency rank #432, classified as averb, pronounced /kʌmz/. cometh is at rank #34,439, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈkʌm.əθ/.

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 34871, this pair ranks #316,914 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of comes vs cometh

Shared letters: cemo. Private to "comes": s. Private to "cometh": ht.

"comes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "cometh" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • comesccomes · cmoes · coems · comess · commes · comse · ocmes
  • comethccometh · cmoeth · coemth · comeht · comethh · cometth · commeth · comteh

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "comes" and "cometh" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/kʌmz/ versus /ˈkʌm.əθ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "comes" or "cometh"?
"comes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #432 in our English list, against #34,439 for "cometh". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "comes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cometh" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #316,914 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "comes" and "cometh" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cometh vs covet". 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 #316,914 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