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PlainSpell

common

com·monUK /ˈkɒmən/adjective, noun

common is spelled C-O-M-M-O-N, 2 syllables: com·mon. The wrong spelling people search most is comon: about 220 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 38 of all searches for the word. Common is an adjective meaning “Mutual; shared by more than one”.

How many letters and syllables are in common?

Letters6: C-O-M-M-O-N
Syllables2: com·mon
In writing158 times per million words; the 638th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched2; the most searched, comon, about 220 Bing searches a month (all of them)

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).

How do you spell common?

Common is spelled C-O-M-M-O-N. 2 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 22 of the searches for common in either form.

commonthe right spelling8,200 searches a month
comona missing m220 searches a month
commomm in place of n170 searches a month

Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.

How common is common?

Common appears 158 times per million words in written English, the 638th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce common?

  • UK /ˈkɒmən/
  • British /ˈkɔmən/
  • /ˈkɒmən/

Common has 2 syllables, split com·mon in writing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-GB-common.ogg, En-us-common.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Naomi_Persephone_Amethyst_(NaomiAmethyst)-common.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of common

  • commoner comparative
  • most common superlative
  • commonest superlative
  • commons plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • commoning participle, present
  • commoned participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does common mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

adjective

  1. 1

    Mutual; shared by more than one.

    The two competitors have the common aim of winning the championship.

  2. 2

    Existing among virtually all people; universal.

    common knowledge, common decency, common sense

  3. 3

    Occurring or happening regularly or frequently; usual.

    It is common to find sharks off this coast.

  4. 4

    Found in large numbers or in a large quantity; usual.

    "Commoner" used to be commoner, but "more common" is now more common.

  5. 5

    Simple, ordinary or vulgar.

    the common folk

  6. 6

    As part of the vernacular name of a species, usually denoting that it is abundant or widely known.

    the common daisy (Bellis perennis)

  7. 7

    Vernacular, referring to the name of a kind of plant or animal.

    common name vs. scientific name.

  8. 8

    Arising from use or tradition, as opposed to being created by a legislative body.

    common law

noun

  1. 1

    Mutual good, shared by more than one.

  2. 2

    A tract of land in common ownership; common land.

  3. 3

    The people; the community.

  4. 4

    The right of taking a profit in the land of another, in common either with the owner or with other persons; so called from the community of interest which arises between the claimant of the right and the owner of the soil, or between the claimants and other commoners entitled to the same right.

verb

  1. 1

    obsoleteTo communicate (something).

  2. 2

    obsoleteTo converse, talk.

  3. 3

    obsoleteTo have sex.

  4. 4

    obsoleteTo participate.

  5. 5

    obsoleteTo have a joint right with others in common ground.

  6. 6

    obsoleteTo board together; to eat at a table in common.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you abbreviate common?

Wiktionary records one abbreviation of common: com.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Common in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchcommun (mutual), ordinaire (ordinary), espace public, espace domanial, copropriété (tract of land)
Germangemeinsam, Gemein-, gemeinschaftlich (mutual), gewöhnlich, häufig, normal (usual)
Portuguesecomum (mutual), (género) comum (grammar: of the gender resulting from the…)
Spanishcomún (mutual), ejido (tract of land), guashquero (usual)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does common come from?

From Middle English comun, from Anglo-Norman comun, from Old French comun (rare in the Gallo-Romance languages, but reinforced as a Carolingian calque of Proto-West Germanic *gamainī (“common”) in Old French), from Latin commūnis (“common, public, general”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱom-moy-ni-s (“held in common”), from Proto-Indo-European *mey- (“to exchange, change”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after common