Which to use
“cortês” is an adjective and “costas” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #27,024
- “cortês” frequency rank
- #1,739
- “costas” frequency rank
- 28763
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | cortês | costas |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | que tem cortesia | lado posterior do tórax humano |
Where the eye mixes cortês and costas
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between cortês and costas
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cortês is /kuɾ.ˈteʃ/ while costas is /ˈkɔʃtɜʃ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28763, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
cortês is recorded at frequency rank #27,024, classified as anadj, pronounced /kuɾ.ˈteʃ/. costas is at rank #1,739, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈkɔʃtɜʃ/.
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 28763, this pair ranks #40,023 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of cortês vs costas
Shared letters: cost. Private to "cortês": rê. Private to "costas": a.
"cortês" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "costas" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- costas ← ccostas · cosats · cosstas · costass · costsa · costtas · cotsas · csotas
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "cortês" and "costas" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "cortês" or "costas"?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "cortês" and "costas" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "cortês" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "costas" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #40,023 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "cortês" and "costas" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Ceres vs cortês". 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 #40,023 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.