cabvscoWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“cab” and “co” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#22,504
“cab” frequency rank
#1,856
“co” frequency rank
24360
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cab co
Definition Taxi britannique. Connexion.

Where the eye mixes cab and co

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

3 ch
cab
2 ch
co

Look-alike desk: cab vs co

A purely visual mix-up. cab (\kab\) and co (\ko\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24360, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cab is recorded at frequency rank #22,504, classified as anoun, pronounced \kab\. co is at rank #1,856, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ko\.

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 24360, this pair ranks #347,045 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of cab vs co

Shared letters: c. Private to "cab": ab. Private to "co": o.

"cab" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "co" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cab" and "co" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\kab\ versus \ko\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "cab" vs "co" - which ranks higher?
"co" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,856 in our French list, against #22,504 for "cab". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "cab" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "co" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #347,045 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cab" and "co" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cab vs CCE". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #347,045 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list