gobevsgomaWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#47,359
“gobe” frequency rank
#36,415
“goma” frequency rank
83774
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gobe goma
Definition Variante orthographique de gobbe. Sorte de clôture formées d’un enchevêtrement de branches.

Where the eye mixes gobe and goma

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. gobe and goma follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
gobe
4 ch
goma

Look-alike desk: gobe vs goma

A purely visual mix-up. gobe (\ɡɔb\) and goma (\ɡɔ.ma\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 83774, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gobe is recorded at frequency rank #47,359, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɡɔb\. goma is at rank #36,415, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɡɔ.ma\.

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 83774, this pair ranks #14,192 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of gobe vs goma

Shared letters: go. Private to "gobe": be. Private to "goma": am.

"gobe" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "goma" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • gobe ← gboe · ggobe · gobbe · goeb · ogbe
  • goma ← ggoma · gmoa · goam · gomma · ogma

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "gobe" and "goma" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ɡɔb\ versus \ɡɔ.ma\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "gobe" or "goma" show up more?
"goma" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #36,415 in our French list, against #47,359 for "gobe". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "gobe" and "goma" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "gobe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "goma" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #14,192 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "gobe" and "goma" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "glue vs gobe". 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 #14,192 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