casevscosTell them apart

Quick tell: case is a noun, cos is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“case” is a noun and “cos” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#6,149
“case” frequency rank
#27,810
“cos” frequency rank
33959
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature case cos
Definition caso qualquer coisa

Letter map: case vs cos

Shared letters muted; letters that set case and cos apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
case
3 ch
cos

Role in the sentence - case and cos

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: case is anoun and cosapronoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33959, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

case is recorded at frequency rank #6,149, classified as anoun, pronounced /keɪs/. cos is at rank #27,810, tagged as apron.

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 33959, this pair ranks #33,430 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of case vs cos

Shared letters: cs. Private to "case": ae. Private to "cos": o.

"case" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "cos" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • caseacse · caes · casse · ccase · csae

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "case" and "cos" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "case" is a noun and "cos" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "case" or "cos"?
"case" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,149 in our Portuguese list, against #27,810 for "cos". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "case" and "cos". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "case" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cos" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #33,430 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "case" and "cos" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "coin vs cos". 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 #33,430 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list