comióvscómoWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: comió is a verb, cómo is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“comió” is a verb and “cómo” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#10,810
“comió” frequency rank
#124
“cómo” frequency rank
10934
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature comió cómo
Definition Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del pretérito perfecto simple de indicativo de comer o de comerse. De qué manera.

Where the eye mixes comió and cómo

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

5 ch
comió
4 ch
cómo

Why the eye confuses comió with cómo

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: comió is [koˈmjo] while cómo is [ˈkomo]. 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 (verb vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10934, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

comió is recorded at frequency rank #10,810, classified as averb, pronounced [koˈmjo]. cómo is at rank #124, tagged as anadv, pronounced [ˈkomo].

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 10934, this pair ranks #296,836 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of comió vs cómo

Shared letters: cmoó. Private to "comió": i. Private to "cómo": -.

"comió" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "cómo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "comió" for "cómo" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "comió" is a verb and "cómo" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "comió" or "cómo" show up more?
"cómo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #124 in our Spanish list, against #10,810 for "comió". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "comió" and "cómo" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "comió" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cómo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #296,836 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "comió" and "cómo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "coin vs comió". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #296,836 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