comervscometaConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#753
“comer” frequency rank
#12,402
“cometa” frequency rank
13155
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature comer cometa
Definition comida, alimentos astro de cauda luminosa que descreve órbita muito alongada em volta do Sol

Where the eye mixes comer and cometa

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
comer
6 ch
cometa

Look-alike desk: comer vs cometa

A purely visual mix-up. comer (/ku.'me/) and cometa (/ku.ˈme.tɐ/) 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 13155, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

comer is recorded at frequency rank #753, classified as anoun, pronounced /ku.'me/. cometa is at rank #12,402, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ku.ˈme.tɐ/.

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 13155, this pair ranks #59,289 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of comer vs cometa

Shared letters: cemo. Private to "comer": r. Private to "cometa": at.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • comerccomer · cmoer · coemr · comerr · commer · comre · ocmer
  • cometaccometa · cmoeta · coemta · comeat · cometta · commeta · comtea · ocmeta

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "comer" and "cometa" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/ku.'me/ versus /ku.ˈme.tɐ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "comer" or "cometa" show up more?
"comer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #753 in our Portuguese list, against #12,402 for "cometa". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "comer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cometa" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #59,289 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "comer" and "cometa" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cometa vs copta". 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 #59,289 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