closevscosWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#9,457
“close” frequency rank
#27,810
“cos” frequency rank
37267
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature close cos
Definition tomada realizada com um dispositivo filmador ou fotográfico em que se enche o enquadramento com o objeto filmado ou fotografado através do zum ou aproximando o dispositivo filmador ou fotográfico qualquer coisa

Letter map: close vs cos

Shared letters muted; letters that set close and cos apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
close
3 ch
cos

Grammar separator: close vs cos

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: close is anoun and cosapronoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37267, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

close is recorded at frequency rank #9,457, classified as anoun. 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 37267, this pair ranks #29,388 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of close vs cos

Shared letters: cos. Private to "close": el. Private to "cos": -.

"close" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "cos" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • closecclose · cllose · cloes · closse · clsoe · colse · lcose

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "close" for "cos" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "close" is a noun and "cos" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "close" or "cos" show up more?
"close" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,457 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.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "close" 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 #29,388 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "close" 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 #29,388 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