co vs com, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#2,005
“co” frequency rank: #14
“com” frequency rank: 2019
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	co	com
Definition	que	indica várias relações: companhia, causa, instrumento, ligação, modo, oposição

Letter map: co vs com

Shared letters muted; letters that set co and com apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

2 ch

3 ch

com

Grammar separator: co vs com

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: co is apronoun and comapreposition. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “co” sits inside “com”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2019, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

co is recorded at frequency rank #2,005, classified as apron. com is at rank #14, tagged as aprep, pronounced /kõ/.

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 2019, this pair ranks #73,473 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of co vs com

Shared letters: co. Private to "co": -. Private to "com": m.

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "co" and "com" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "co" is a pronoun and "com" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Frequency check: "co" vs "com" - which ranks higher?

"com" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14 in our Portuguese list, against #2,005 for "co". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

Full dictionary entry for "co" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "com" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #73,473 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"co" and "com" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ciao vs co". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #73,473 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.