co vs cu, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#2,005
“co” frequency rank: #4,716
“cu” frequency rank: 6721
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	co	cu
Definition	que	extremidade do intestino grosso; ânus

Letter map: co vs cu

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

2 ch

Role in the sentence - co and cu

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: co is apronoun and cuanoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - o in “co” becomes u in “cu”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 6721, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

co is recorded at frequency rank #2,005, classified as apron. cu is at rank #4,716, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈku/.

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 6721, this pair ranks #67,642 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of co vs cu

Shared letters: c. Private to "co": o. Private to "cu": u.

"co" · 2 letters · shape CV · "cu" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "co" and "cu" mean the same thing in a sentence?

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

Which is more common, "co" or "cu"?

"co" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,005 in our Portuguese list, against #4,716 for "cu". 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 "co" and "cu". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "co" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "cu" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #67,642 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"co" and "cu" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "chau vs cu". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #67,642 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.