close vs coe, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“close” is an adjective and “coe” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#10,842
“close” frequency rank: #34,469
“coe” frequency rank: 45311
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	close	coe
Definition	Féminin singulier de clos.	Queue.

Letter map: close vs coe

Shared letters muted; letters that set close and coe apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch

3 ch

coe

Grammar separator: close vs coe

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: close is anadjective and coeanoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45311, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

close is recorded at frequency rank #10,842, classified as anadj, pronounced \kloz\. coe is at rank #34,469, tagged as anoun.

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 45311, this pair ranks #203,717 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of close vs coe

Shared letters: ceo. Private to "close": ls. Private to "coe": -.

"close" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV · "coe" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

close ← cclose · cllose · cloes · closse · clsoe · colse · lcose

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "close" for "coe" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "close" is an adjective and "coe" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "close" or "coe"?

"close" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,842 in our French list, against #34,469 for "coe". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "close" and "coe". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "close" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "coe" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #203,717 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"close" and "coe" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "coe vs conde". 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 #203,717 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.