cóleravscomerWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#16,025
“cólera” frequency rank
#753
“comer” frequency rank
16778
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cólera comer
Definition indignação comida, alimentos

Where the eye mixes cólera and comer

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. cólera runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against comer's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
cólera
5 ch
comer

Why the eye confuses cólera with comer

A purely visual mix-up. cólera (/ˈkɔ.lɨ.ɾɐ/) and comer (/ku.'me/) 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 16778, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cólera is recorded at frequency rank #16,025, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈkɔ.lɨ.ɾɐ/. comer is at rank #753, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ku.'me/.

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 16778, this pair ranks #54,669 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cólera vs comer

Shared letters: cer. Private to "cólera": aló. Private to "comer": mo.

"cólera" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "comer" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • comer ← ccomer · cmoer · coemr · comerr · commer · comre · ocmer

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cólera" and "comer" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/ˈkɔ.lɨ.ɾɐ/ versus /ku.'me/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cólera" or "comer"?
"comer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #753 in our Portuguese list, against #16,025 for "cólera". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cólera" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "comer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #54,669 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cólera" and "comer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "colcha vs cólera". 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 #54,669 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