commodityvscommunityWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#8,766
“commodity” frequency rank
#454
“community” frequency rank
9220
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature commodity community
Definition Anything movable (a good) that is bought and sold. A group sharing common characteristics, such as the same language, law, religion, or tradition.

Where the eye mixes commodity and community

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence.

9 ch
commodity
9 ch
community

Why the eye confuses commodity with community

A purely visual mix-up. commodity (/kəˈmɑdəti/) and community (/kəˈmjuː.nɪ.ti/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9220, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

commodity is recorded at frequency rank #8,766, classified as anoun, pronounced /kəˈmɑdəti/. community is at rank #454, tagged as anoun, pronounced /kəˈmjuː.nɪ.ti/.

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 9220, this pair ranks #498,498 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of commodity vs community

Shared letters: cimoty. Private to "commodity": d. Private to "community": nu.

"commodity" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCVCV  ·  "community" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • commodityccommodity · cmomodity · commdoity · commoddity · commoditty · commodityy · commodiyt · commodtiy
  • communityccommunity · cmomunity · commnuity · commuinty · communitty · communityy · communiyt · communnity

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "commodity" for "community" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/kəˈmɑdəti/ versus /kəˈmjuː.nɪ.ti/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "commodity" or "community"?
"community" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #454 in our English list, against #8,766 for "commodity". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "commodity" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "community" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #498,498 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "commodity" and "community" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "communion vs community". 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 #498,498 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