comsvscostConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#48,668
“coms” frequency rank
#568
“cost” frequency rank
49236
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature coms cost
Definition Combinations (underwear). To incur a charge of; to require payment of a (specified) price.

Letter map: coms vs cost

Shared letters muted; letters that set coms and cost apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

4 ch
coms
4 ch
cost

Part-of-speech tell for coms / cost

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: coms is anoun and costaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49236, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

coms is recorded at frequency rank #48,668, classified as anoun. cost is at rank #568, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈkɒst/.

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 49236, this pair ranks #185,518 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of coms vs cost

Shared letters: cos. Private to "coms": m. Private to "cost": t.

"coms" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "cost" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • comsccoms · comms · comss · cosm · ocms
  • costccost · cosst · costt · cots · csot · ocst

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "coms" and "cost" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "coms" is a noun and "cost" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "coms" or "cost" show up more?
"cost" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #568 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.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "coms" and "cost".

  • Full dictionary entry for "coms" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cost" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #185,518 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "coms" and "cost" 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 #185,518 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