colivscoxWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#34,028
“coli” frequency rank
#19,493
“cox” frequency rank
53521
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature coli cox
Definition Escherichia coli ou E. coli ou colibacille. Variété de pommier.

Where the eye mixes coli and cox

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

4 ch
coli
3 ch
cox

Visual trap between coli and cox

A purely visual mix-up. coli (\kɔ.li\) and cox (\koks\) 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 53521, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

coli is recorded at frequency rank #34,028, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɔ.li\. cox is at rank #19,493, tagged as anoun, pronounced \koks\.

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 53521, this pair ranks #140,143 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of coli vs cox

Shared letters: co. Private to "coli": il. Private to "cox": x.

"coli" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "cox" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • coliccoli · coil · colli · ocli

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "coli" and "cox" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\kɔ.li\ versus \koks\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "coli" or "cox"?
"cox" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,493 in our French list, against #34,028 for "coli". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "coli" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cox" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #140,143 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "coli" and "cox" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "coli vs coon". 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 #140,143 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