catvscoConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#7,740
“cat” frequency rank
#2,005
“co” frequency rank
9745
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cat co
Definition gato (Felis catus) que

Letter map: cat vs co

Shared letters muted; letters that set cat and co apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch
cat
2 ch
co

Part-of-speech tell for cat / co

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: cat is anoun and coapronoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9745, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cat is recorded at frequency rank #7,740, classified as anoun, pronounced /kʰaʰt̪/. co is at rank #2,005, 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 9745, this pair ranks #63,572 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of cat vs co

Shared letters: c. Private to "cat": at. Private to "co": o.

"cat" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "co" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cat" for "co" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cat" is a noun and "co" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "cat" or "co"?
"co" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,005 in our Portuguese list, against #7,740 for "cat". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "cat" and "co".

  • Full dictionary entry for "cat" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "co" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #63,572 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cat" and "co" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cat vs chau". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #63,572 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