cops vs cost, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#13,118
“cops” frequency rank: #27,668
“cost” frequency rank: 40786
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	cops	cost
Definition	3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs cop	Kosten

Letter map: cops vs cost

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

4 ch

cops

4 ch

cost

Part-of-speech tell for cops / cost

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: cops is averb and costanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40786, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cops is recorded at frequency rank #13,118, classified as averb, pronounced […]. cost is at rank #27,668, tagged as anoun, pronounced […].

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 40786, this pair ranks #1,498,323 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cops vs cost

Shared letters: cos. Private to "cops": p. Private to "cost": t.

"cops" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "cost" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

cops ← ccops · copps · copss · cosp · cpos · ocps
cost ← ccost · cosst · costt · cots · csot · ocst

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cops" and "cost" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cops" is a verb and "cost" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Frequency check: "cops" vs "cost" - which ranks higher?

"cops" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,118 in our German list, against #27,668 for "cost". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "cops" vs "cost" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "cops" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "cost" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #1,498,323 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"cops" and "cost" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cost vs puzzles". 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 #1,498,323 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.