Which to use
“cocked” is an adjective and “conned” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #31,479
- “cocked” frequency rank
- #35,229
- “conned” frequency rank
- 66708
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | cocked | conned |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Drunk. | simple past and past participle of con |
Where the eye mixes cocked and conned
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. cocked and conned follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses cocked with conned
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cocked is /kɑkt/ while conned is /kɒnd/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 66708, 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/. conned is at rank #35,229, tagged as averb, pronounced /kɒnd/.
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 66708, this pair ranks #66,757 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of cocked vs conned
Shared letters: cdeo. Private to "cocked": k. Private to "conned": n.
"cocked" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "conned" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "cocked" and "conned" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "cocked" vs "conned" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "cocked" and "conned" 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 "conned" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #66,757 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "cocked" and "conned" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "coaxed vs conned". 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 #66,757 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.