cédavscosaWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: céda is a verb, cosa is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“céda” is a verb and “cosa” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#38,740
“céda” frequency rank
#46,679
“cosa” frequency rank
85419
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature céda cosa
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple du verbe céder. Variante du IXᵉ siècle de chose.

Where the eye mixes céda and cosa

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. céda and cosa follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
céda
4 ch
cosa

Look-alike desk: céda vs cosa

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: céda is \se.da\ while cosa is \ˈkɔza ~ˈkɔzə\. 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 noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 85419, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

céda is recorded at frequency rank #38,740, classified as averb, pronounced \se.da\. cosa is at rank #46,679, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈkɔza ~ˈkɔzə\.

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 85419, this pair ranks #11,398 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of céda vs cosa

Shared letters: ac. Private to "céda": dé. Private to "cosa": os.

"céda" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "cosa" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cosa ← ccosa · coas · cossa · csoa · ocsa

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "céda" and "cosa" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "céda" is a verb and "cosa" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "céda" or "cosa"?
"céda" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #38,740 in our French list, against #46,679 for "cosa". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "céda" 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 #11,398 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "céda" and "cosa" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cosa vs coupa". 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 #11,398 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