cob
/kɑb/
"cob" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“cob” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #27,404 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #27,404
- frequency rank, English
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A corncob.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | cob |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /kɑb/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #27,404 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “cob” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for cob is 3 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /kɑb/. Corpus data places it at rank #27,404 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 19 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
cob has no tracked misspelling variants, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "CT", "CR", "cs", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: Of uncertain origin. The word has many disparate senses, which are likely of diverse origin. The specifics of these origins have long been debated, as has the question of which senses arise from which origins. At least the swan sense originated in Middle En… The correct English form is cob, spelled C-O-B.
Definition
- 1A corncob.
- 2The seed-bearing head of a plant.
- 3Clipping of cobnut.
- 4A male swan.
- 5A gull, especially the black-backed gull (Larus marinus); also spelled cobb.
- 6A lump or piece of anything, usually of a somewhat large size, as of coal, stone, or excrement.
- 7A round, often crusty roll or loaf of bread.
- 8A building material consisting of clay, sand, straw, water, and earth, similar to adobe; also called cobb, rammed earth or pisé.
- 9A horse having a stout body and short legs.
- 10Any of the gold and silver coins that were minted in the Spanish Empire and valued in reales or escudos, such as the piece of eight—especially those which were crudely struck and irregularly shaped.
- 11One who is eminent, great, large, or rich.
- 12A spider (cf. cobweb).
- 13A small fish, the miller's thumb.
- 14A large fish, especially the kabeljou (variant spelling of kob).
- 15The head of a herring.
- 16A tower or small castle on top of a hill.
- 17A thresher.
- 18A cylinder with pins in it, encoding music to be played back mechanically by a barrel organ.
- 19A person of mixed black and white ancestry, especially a griffe; a mulatto.
Etymology
Of uncertain origin. The word has many disparate senses, which are likely of diverse origin. The specifics of these origins have long been debated, as has the question of which senses arise from which origins. At least the swan sense originated in Middle English cobbe (“male swan; gang leader; bully”). Some other senses likely originated as a variant of cop (“head, top, peak, summit”). In other senses, the word may be related to cub, itself of obscure origin but possibly from Old Norse kobbi (“seal”). However, many alternative etymologies have been proposed to account for some or all senses of cob; various sources have related it, for example, to English cot (“cottage”), Welsh cob (“top, tuft”), or German Kübel (“large container”). All these etymologies are disputed, and the exact origins of cob cannot be known with any certainty.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “cob”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-O-B - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /kɑb/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “CT” - see the side-by-side comparison. cob vs CT
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.