copsvscosWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: cops is a verb, cos is an abbrev, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#13,118
“cops” frequency rank
#29,065
“cos” frequency rank
42183
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cops cos
Definition 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs cop Kosinus

Letter map: cops vs cos

Shared letters muted; letters that set cops and cos apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

4 ch
cops
3 ch
cos

Part-of-speech tell for cops / cos

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: cops is averb and cosanabbrev. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42183, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cops is recorded at frequency rank #13,118, classified as averb, pronounced […]. 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 42183, this pair ranks #1,457,058 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cops vs cos

Shared letters: cos. Private to "cops": p. Private to "cos": -.

"cops" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "cos" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • copsccops · copps · copss · cosp · cpos · ocps

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cops" and "cos" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cops" is a verb and "cos" an abbrev, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "cops" or "cos" show up more?
"cops" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,118 in our German list, against #29,065 for "cos". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "cops" and "cos".

  • Full dictionary entry for "cops" 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 #1,457,058 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cops" 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 #1,457,058 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list