comióvscomúnWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#10,810
“comió” frequency rank
#622
“común” frequency rank
11432
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature comió común
Definition Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del pretérito perfecto simple de indicativo de comer o de comerse. Compartido por varios.

Where the eye mixes comió and común

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

5 ch
comió
5 ch
común

Look-alike desk: comió vs común

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: comió is [koˈmjo] while común is [koˈmũn]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11432, 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]. común is at rank #622, tagged as anadj, pronounced [koˈmũn].

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 11432, this pair ranks #295,148 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of comió vs común

Shared letters: cmo. Private to "comió": . Private to "común": .

"comió" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "común" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "comió" and "común" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "comió" is a verb and "común" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "comió" or "común" show up more?
"común" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #622 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.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "comió" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "común" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #295,148 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "comió" and "común" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "coin vs comió". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #295,148 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