comavscosaTell them apart

Which to use

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

#8,824
“coma” frequency rank
#46,679
“cosa” frequency rank
55503
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature coma cosa
Definition État somnolent avec abolition de la sensibilité et du mouvement volontaire. Variante du IXᵉ siècle de chose.

Where the eye mixes coma and cosa

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

4 ch
coma
4 ch
cosa

Look-alike desk: coma vs cosa

A purely visual mix-up. coma (\kɔ.ma\) and cosa (\ˈkɔza ~ˈkɔzə\) 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 a single letter - m in “coma” becomes s in “cosa”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55503, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

coma is recorded at frequency rank #8,824, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɔ.ma\. 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 55503, this pair ranks #127,083 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of coma vs cosa

Shared letters: aco. Private to "coma": m. Private to "cosa": s.

"coma" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "cosa" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • comaccoma · cmoa · coam · comma · ocma
  • cosaccosa · coas · cossa · csoa · ocsa

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "coma" and "cosa" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\kɔ.ma\ versus \ˈkɔza ~ˈkɔzə\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "coma" or "cosa" show up more?
"coma" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,824 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.

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 "coma" 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 #127,083 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "coma" 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 #127,083 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