cotvscroftWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#22,045
“cot” frequency rank
#23,227
“croft” frequency rank
45272
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cot croft
Definition A simple bed, especially one for portable or temporary purposes. An enclosed piece of land, usually small and arable and used for small-scale food production, and often with a dwelling next to it; in particular, such a piece of land rented to a farmer (a crofter), especially in Scotland, together with a right to use separate pastureland shared by other crofters.

Where the eye mixes cot and croft

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

3 ch
cot
5 ch
croft

Visual trap between cot and croft

A purely visual mix-up. cot (/kɒt/) and croft (/kɹɔf/) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45272, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cot is recorded at frequency rank #22,045, classified as anoun, pronounced /kɒt/. croft is at rank #23,227, tagged as anoun, pronounced /kɹɔf/.

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 45272, this pair ranks #222,796 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cot vs croft

Shared letters: cot. Private to "cot": -. Private to "croft": fr.

"cot" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "croft" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • croftccroft · corft · crfot · crofft · croftt · crotf · crroft · rcoft

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cot" for "croft" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/kɒt/ versus /kɹɔf/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cot" or "croft"?
"cot" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,045 in our English list, against #23,227 for "croft". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cot" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "croft" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #222,796 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cot" and "croft" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Croat vs croft". 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 #222,796 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