cob
/kɑb/
"cob" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“cob” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #27,404) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #27,404
- frequency rank, English
- 5,599
- “C” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A corncob.
Corpus desk
Index EN-cob · cob · English
cob · rank #27,404 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #27,404
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,599
- PHOTO-FINISH cmon
Nearest frequency peer: cmon (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbours of confusable “cob”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- clearest
clearest
72,600 corpus weight
- cleaver
cleaver
72,599 corpus weight
- cmon
cmon
72,598 corpus weight
- cob
cob
72,597 corpus weight
- coexist
coexist
72,596 corpus weight
- coinage
coinage
72,594 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “cob” against nearest ranked English headwords, not a reprint of the confusable-pair desk.
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) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “cob”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for cob is neighbouring look-alikes ("CT", "CR", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /kɑb/. Frequency #27,404 among 5,599 “C” headwords. 19 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
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.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how cob appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The grains, each of which is about the bulk of the largest marrowfat pea, are placed all round a stalk, which goes up the middle, and this little stalk, to which the seeds adhere, is called the Corn Cob.
I passed some mills in which the grain, cob, and husk were all ground up together for the cattle and hogs….
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "cob", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).