covenvscoventWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#28,883
“coven” frequency rank
#27,416
“covent” frequency rank
56299
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature coven covent
Definition A nunnery, a convent Convent.

Letter map: coven vs covent

Shared letters muted; letters that set coven and covent apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. coven runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against covent's 6 (CVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
coven
6 ch
covent

Spelling & dictionary notes on coven vs covent

coven and covent are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “coven” sits inside “covent”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56299, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

coven is recorded at frequency rank #28,883, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈkʌv.ən/. covent is at rank #27,416, tagged as anoun.

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 56299, this pair ranks #127,281 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of coven vs covent

Shared letters: cenov. Private to "coven": -. Private to "covent": t.

"coven" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "covent" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • coven ← ccoven · coevn · covenn · covne · covven · cvoen · ocven
  • covent ← ccovent · coevnt · covennt · coventt · covetn · covnet · covvent · cvoent

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "coven" for "covent" ever safe?
No. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “coven” sits inside “covent”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "coven" vs "covent" - which ranks higher?
"covent" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,416 in our English list, against #28,883 for "coven". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "coven" and "covent".

  • Full dictionary entry for "coven" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "covent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #127,281 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "coven" and "covent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "coven vs cower". 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 #127,281 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