commuvscommuneTell them apart

Which to use

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

#39,714
“commu” frequency rank
#917
“commune” frequency rank
40631
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature commu commune
Definition Communauté (en particulier sur Internet). Division du territoire.

Where the eye mixes commu and commune

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

5 ch
commu
7 ch
commune

Look-alike desk: commu vs commune

A purely visual mix-up. commu (\kɔ.my\) and commune (\kɔ.myn\) 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) - “commu” sits inside “commune”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40631, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

commu is recorded at frequency rank #39,714, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɔ.my\. commune is at rank #917, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kɔ.myn\.

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 40631, this pair ranks #239,120 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of commu vs commune

Shared letters: cmou. Private to "commu": -. Private to "commune": en.

"commu" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "commune" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • commuccommu · cmomu · comu · comum · ocmmu
  • communeccommune · cmomune · commnue · commuen · communne · comumne · comune · ocmmune

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "commu" and "commune" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\kɔ.my\ versus \kɔ.myn\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "commu" or "commune"?
"commune" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #917 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.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "commu" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "commune" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #239,120 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "commu" and "commune" 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 #239,120 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