cockedvscodedWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“cocked” and “coded” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#31,479
“cocked” frequency rank
#13,305
“coded” frequency rank
44784
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cocked coded
Definition Drunk. Encoded; written in code or cipher.

Where the eye mixes cocked and coded

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
cocked
5 ch
coded

Look-alike desk: cocked vs coded

A purely visual mix-up. cocked (/kɑkt/) and coded (/ˈkəʊ.dəd/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44784, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cocked is recorded at frequency rank #31,479, classified as anadj, pronounced /kɑkt/. coded is at rank #13,305, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈkəʊ.dəd/.

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 44784, this pair ranks #227,364 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cocked vs coded

Shared letters: cdeo. Private to "cocked": k. Private to "coded": -.

"cocked" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "coded" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cockedccocked · ccoked · coccked · cocekd · cockde · cockedd · cockked · cokced
  • codedccoded · cdoed · codded · codedd · coedd · ocded

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cocked" for "coded" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/kɑkt/ versus /ˈkəʊ.dəd/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cocked" or "coded"?
"coded" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,305 in our English list, against #31,479 for "cocked". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "cocked" and "coded" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cocked" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "coded" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #227,364 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cocked" and "coded" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cocked vs corker". 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 #227,364 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list