Common sense or commonsense?
common sense is a noun meaning “Ordinary sensible understanding; one's basic intelligence which allows for…”; commonsense is an adjective meaning “Alternative form of common sense”. common sense is written as two words and commonsense as one word; they are used differently.
What is the difference between common sense and commonsense?
| common sense | commonsense | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun | adjective, noun |
| Meaning | Ordinary sensible understanding; one's basic intelligence which allows for plain understanding and without which good decisions or judgments cannot be made One of the four interior senses; the one by which information from the five exterior senses is understood and interpreted | Alternative form of common sense |
| Example | none recorded | none recorded |
| Pronunciation | not recorded | not recorded |
| In writing | not counted (the list counts single words) | about once in every 2 million words |
Sources: common sense and commonsense in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of common sense and commonsense
common sense
- 1
Ordinary sensible understanding; one's basic intelligence which allows for plain understanding and without which good decisions or judgments cannot be made
- 2
datedDated form of common sense
- 3
One of the four interior senses; the one by which information from the five exterior senses is understood and interpreted
commonsense
- 1
Alternative form of common sense
- 2
Alternative form of common sense
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, common sense or commonsense?
common sense is a phrase, which the list of single words does not count; commonsense about once in every 2 million words.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search common sense vs commonsense?
“common sense vs commonsense” is searched about 10 times a month on Google and 10 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“commonsense vs common sense”, “common sense or commonsense”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.