Code vs cos, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“Code” is a noun and “cos” is an abbrev - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2,434
“Code” frequency rank: #29,065
“cos” frequency rank: 31499
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	Code	cos
Definition	ein System von Übereinkünften, das die eindeutige Zuordnung von Zeichen und Zeichenfolgen zweier verschiedener Zeichensysteme festlegt oder auch ein solches Zeichensystem selbst	Kosinus

Letter map: Code vs cos

Shared letters muted; letters that set Code and cos apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch

Code

3 ch

cos

Part-of-speech tell for Code / cos

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Code is anoun and cosanabbrev. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31499, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Code is recorded at frequency rank #2,434, classified as anoun, pronounced [koːt]. cos is at rank #29,065, tagged as anabbrev.

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 31499, this pair ranks #1,726,872 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Code vs cos

Shared letters: co. Private to "Code": de. Private to "cos": s.

"Code" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "cos" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

Code ← ccode · cdoe · codde · coed · ocde

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Code" for "cos" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Code" is a noun and "cos" an abbrev, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "Code" or "cos"?

"Code" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,434 in our German list, against #29,065 for "cos". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pair "Code" vs "cos" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "Code" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "cos" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #1,726,872 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"Code" and "cos" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "CCS vs cos". 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 #1,726,872 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.