comvscomboConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#3,446
“com” frequency rank
#15,110
“combo” frequency rank
18556
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature com combo
Definition Communication. Deux ou plusieurs appareils, fonctions, combinés en un.

Where the eye mixes com and combo

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

3 ch
com
5 ch
combo

Visual trap between com and combo

A purely visual mix-up. com (\kɔm\) and combo (\kɔ̃.bo\) 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 2 extra letter(s) - “com” sits inside “combo”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18556, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

com is recorded at frequency rank #3,446, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɔm\. combo is at rank #15,110, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kɔ̃.bo\.

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 18556, this pair ranks #377,717 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of com vs combo

Shared letters: cmo. Private to "com": -. Private to "combo": b.

"com" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "combo" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • comboccombo · cmobo · cobmo · combbo · commbo · comob · ocmbo

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "com" for "combo" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\kɔm\ versus \kɔ̃.bo\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "com" vs "combo" - which ranks higher?
"com" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,446 in our French list, against #15,110 for "combo". 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 "com" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "combo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #377,717 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "com" and "combo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "combo vs compos". 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 #377,717 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