Which to use
“cog” is a noun and “cough” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #28,496
- “cog” frequency rank
- #7,668
- “cough” frequency rank
- 36164
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | cog | cough |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A tooth on a gear. | Sometimes followed by up: to force (something) out of the lungs or throat by pushing air from the lungs through the glottis (causing a short, explosive sound), and out through the mouth. |
Where the eye mixes cog and cough
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cog is /kɒɡ/ while cough is /kɒf/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 36164, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
cog is recorded at frequency rank #28,496, classified as anoun, pronounced /kɒɡ/. cough is at rank #7,668, tagged as averb, pronounced /kɒf/.
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 36164, this pair ranks #305,612 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of cog vs cough
Shared letters: cgo. Private to "cog": -. Private to "cough": hu.
"cog" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "cough" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- cough ← ccough · coguh · couggh · coughh · couhg · cuogh · ocugh