cookervscowerWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: cooker is a noun, cower is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#18,522
“cooker” frequency rank
#49,846
“cower” frequency rank
68368
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cooker cower
Definition A cookstove. To crouch or cringe, or to avoid or shy away from something, in fear.

Where the eye mixes cooker and cower

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

6 ch
cooker
5 ch
cower

Look-alike desk: cooker vs cower

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cooker is /ˈkʊkɚ/ while cower is /ˈkaʊɚ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 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 68368, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cooker is recorded at frequency rank #18,522, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈkʊkɚ/. cower is at rank #49,846, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈkaʊɚ/.

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 68368, this pair ranks #59,167 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cooker vs cower

Shared letters: ceor. Private to "cooker": k. Private to "cower": w.

"cooker" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "cower" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cookerccooker · cokoer · cooekr · cookerr · cookker · cookre · ocoker
  • cowerccower · coewr · cowerr · cowre · cowwer · cwoer · ocwer

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cooker" for "cower" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cooker" is a noun and "cower" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "cooker" or "cower" show up more?
"cooker" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,522 in our English list, against #49,846 for "cower". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "cooker" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cower" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #59,167 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cooker" and "cower" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cower vs Cowper". 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 #59,167 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