commevscommuConfusable pair

Quick tell: comme is a adverb, commu is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“comme” is an adverb and “commu” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#51
“comme” frequency rank
#39,714
“commu” frequency rank
39765
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature comme commu
Definition De même que ; ainsi que. Communauté (en particulier sur Internet).

Where the eye mixes comme and commu

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
comme
5 ch
commu

Visual trap between comme and commu

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: comme is \kɔm\ while commu is \kɔ.my\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - e in “comme” becomes u in “commu”, and the parts of speech differ too (adverb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39765, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

comme is recorded at frequency rank #51, classified as anadv, pronounced \kɔm\. commu is at rank #39,714, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kɔ.my\.

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 39765, this pair ranks #245,565 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of comme vs commu

Shared letters: cmo. Private to "comme": e. Private to "commu": u.

"comme" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "commu" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • commeccomme · cmome · comem · ocmme
  • commuccommu · cmomu · comu · comum · ocmmu

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "comme" and "commu" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "comme" is an adverb and "commu" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "comme" or "commu" show up more?
"comme" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #51 in our French list, against #39,714 for "commu". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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 "comme" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "commu" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #245,565 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "comme" and "commu" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "commu vs compo". 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 #245,565 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