come
/kʌm/
"come" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“come” is in the everyday core of English, ranked #161 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #161
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To move nearer to the point of perspective.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | come |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /kʌm/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #161 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “come” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for come is 4 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /kʌm/. Corpus data places it at rank #161 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. Wiktionary records 25 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for come, with forms such as "ccome", "cmoe", and "coem". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "cop", "con", "cow", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English comen, cumen, from Old English cuman, from Proto-West Germanic *kweman, from Proto-Germanic *kwemaną (“to come”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷémt (“to step; to arrive”), from *gʷem- (“to come, step”). Cognates Cognate from Proto-Germanic… The correct English form is come, spelled C-O-M-E.
Definition
- 1To move nearer to the point of perspective.
- 2To move nearer to the point of perspective.
- 3To move nearer to the point of perspective.
- 4To move nearer to the point of perspective.
- 5To move nearer to the point of perspective.
- 6To move nearer to the point of perspective.
- 7To arrive.
- 8To appear; to manifest itself; to cause a reaction by manifesting.
- 9To begin (to have an opinion or feeling).
- 10To do something by chance or unintentionally.
- 11To take a position relative to something else in a sequence.
- 12To achieve orgasm; to cum; to ejaculate.
- 13To become butter by being churned.
- 14To approach or reach a state of being or accomplishment.
- 15To take a particular approach or point of view in regard to something.
- 16To become, to turn out to be (often in set phrases and certain collocations).
- 17To be supplied, or made available; to exist.
- 18To carry through; to succeed in.
- 19To happen.
- 20To have as an origin, originate.
- 21To have as an origin, originate.
- 22To have as an origin, originate.
- 23To have as an origin, originate.
- 24To germinate.
- 25To pretend to be; to behave in the manner of; to assume the role of.
Etymology
From Middle English comen, cumen, from Old English cuman, from Proto-West Germanic *kweman, from Proto-Germanic *kwemaną (“to come”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷémt (“to step; to arrive”), from *gʷem- (“to come, step”). Cognates Cognate from Proto-Germanic with Scots cum (“to come”), Yola come, coome, cum (“to come”), North Frisian kaame, kame, keem, kem, kum, kååme, käme (“to come”), Saterland Frisian kume, kuume (“to come”), West Frisian komme (“to come”), Alemannic German cha, cheemen, cheme, cho, chomu, chéeme (“to come”), Bavarian ckeman, kemma, kemman, khemen, kumma, kumman, kèmmin (“to come”), Central Franconian komme, kunn, kumme (“to come”), Cimbrian ken, khemmen, khèmman (“to come”), Dutch komen, kommen (“to come”), Dutch Low Saxon kåmen (“to come”), German and Luxembourgish kommen (“to come”), Low German kamen, kuemen (“to come”), Mòcheno kemmen (“to come”), Yiddish קימען (kimen), קומען (kumen, “to come”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål komme (“to come”), Elfdalian kumå (“to come”), Faroese and Icelandic koma (“to come; to arrive”), Jamtish kuma (“to come”), Norwegian Nynorsk koma, komma, komme, kåmmå, kåmå (“to come”), Swedish komma (“to come”), Crimean Gothic kommen (“to come”), Gothic 𐌵𐌹𐌼𐌰𐌽 (qiman, “to come”). Cognate from Proto-Indo-European with Latin venio (“to come; to approach”), Greek βήμα (víma, “pace, step”), Albanian ngah, ngaj (“to hasten, run”), Latvian dzimt (“to be born”), Lithuanian gimti (“to be born”), Armenian եկ (ek, “the act of coming, arrival; income”), Avestan 𐬔𐬀𐬨 (gam, “to come, go”), Northern Kurdish gav (“step”), Persian گام (gâm, “step”), Tocharian A kum- (“to come”), Tocharian B käm- (“to come”), Sanskrit गम् (gam, “to come, go, move”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ccome,cmoe,coem,comme,ocme
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of come - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "come"?
What does "come" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "come"?
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Using “come”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-O-M-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /kʌm/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “cop” - see the side-by-side comparison. come vs cop
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.