comavsconWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: coma is a noun, con is a preposition, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“coma” is a noun and “con” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#5,703
“coma” frequency rank
#16
“con” frequency rank
5719
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature coma con
Definition Signo de puntuación que se emplea en gramática para dividir ciertas partes de la oración (las aposiciones, las cláusulas adjetivas, los elementos de las listas y las cláusulas desplazadas por hipérbaton), y en matemática para separar los decimales. En compañía de.

Where the eye mixes coma and con

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
coma
3 ch
con

Visual trap between coma and con

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: coma is [ˈkoma] while con is [kõn]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs preposition), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5719, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

coma is recorded at frequency rank #5,703, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈkoma]. con is at rank #16, tagged as aprep, pronounced [kõn].

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 5719, this pair ranks #312,845 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of coma vs con

Shared letters: co. Private to "coma": am. Private to "con": n.

"coma" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "con" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • comaccoma · cmoa · coam · comma · ocma

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "coma" and "con" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "coma" is a noun and "con" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "coma" or "con" show up more?
"con" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16 in our Spanish list, against #5,703 for "coma". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "coma" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "con" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #312,845 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "coma" and "con" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "coin vs coma". 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 #312,845 of 323,831 scored Spanish pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list