clownvscoinWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“clown” and “coin” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#41,399
“clown” frequency rank
#41,891
“coin” frequency rank
83290
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature clown coin
Definition palhaço plural de cù

Where the eye mixes clown and coin

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. clown runs 5 letters (CCVCC) against coin's 4 (CVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
clown
4 ch
coin

Look-alike desk: clown vs coin

A purely visual mix-up. clown (/klun/) and coin (/konʲ/) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 83290, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

clown is recorded at frequency rank #41,399, classified as anoun, pronounced /klun/. coin is at rank #41,891, tagged as anoun, pronounced /konʲ/.

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 83290, this pair ranks #926 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of clown vs coin

Shared letters: cno. Private to "clown": lw. Private to "coin": i.

"clown" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "coin" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • clown ← cclown · cllown · clonw · clownn · clowwn · clwon · colwn · lcown
  • coin ← ccoin · cion · coinn · coni · ocin

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "clown" and "coin" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/klun/ versus /konʲ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "clown" or "coin" show up more?
"clown" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #41,399 in our Portuguese list, against #41,891 for "coin". 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 "clown" and "coin" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "clown" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "coin" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #926 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "clown" and "coin" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "coice vs coin". 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 #926 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