cops vs cups, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#13,118
“cops” frequency rank: #18,850
“cups” frequency rank: 31968
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	cops	cups
Definition	3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs cop	Plural des Substantivs cup

Letter map: cops vs cups

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

4 ch

cops

4 ch

cups

Role in the sentence - cops and cups

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: cops is averb and cupsanoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - o in “cops” becomes u in “cups”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31968, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cops is recorded at frequency rank #13,118, classified as averb, pronounced […]. cups is at rank #18,850, 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 31968, this pair ranks #1,717,463 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of cops vs cups

Shared letters: cps. Private to "cops": o. Private to "cups": u.

"cops" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "cups" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

cops ← ccops · copps · copss · cosp · cpos · ocps
cups ← ccups · cupps · cupss · cusp · ucps

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cops" for "cups" ever safe?

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

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

"cops" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,118 in our German list, against #18,850 for "cups". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "cops" and "cups". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "cops" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "cups" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #1,717,463 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"cops" and "cups" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cups 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 #1,717,463 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.