comavscosaTell them apart

Which to use

“coma” and “cosa” are a confusable Spanish pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#5,703
“coma” frequency rank
#234
“cosa” frequency rank
5937
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature coma cosa
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. Nombre con el que se puede designar un objeto real o imaginario, una abstracción o un concepto sin tener que definirlo o nombrarlo.

Where the eye mixes coma and cosa

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
coma
4 ch
cosa

Look-alike desk: coma vs cosa

A purely visual mix-up. coma ([ˈkoma]) and cosa ([ˈkosa]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - m in “coma” becomes s in “cosa”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5937, 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]. cosa is at rank #234, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈkosa].

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 5937, this pair ranks #312,238 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of coma vs cosa

Shared letters: aco. Private to "coma": m. Private to "cosa": s.

"coma" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "cosa" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • comaccoma · cmoa · coam · comma · ocma
  • cosaccosa · coas · csoa · ocsa

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "coma" and "cosa" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently ([ˈkoma] versus [ˈkosa]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "coma" or "cosa" show up more?
"cosa" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #234 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.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "coma" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cosa" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #312,238 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "coma" and "cosa" 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 #312,238 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