cos
/kɑs/
"cos" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“cos” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #6,553) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #6,553
- frequency rank, English
- 5,599
- “C” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Synonym of romaine lettuce, a long-leaved variety of lettuce.
Corpus desk
Index EN-cos · cos · English
cos · rank #6,553 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #6,553
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,599
- PHOTO-FINISH comeback
Nearest frequency peer: comeback (-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 “cos”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- buzz
buzz
93,451 corpus weight
- Clarke
Clarke
93,450 corpus weight
- comeback
comeback
93,449 corpus weight
- cos
cos
93,448 corpus weight
- crops
crops
93,447 corpus weight
- declare
declare
93,446 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “cos” 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 | cos |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /kɑs/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #6,553 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “cos”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for cos is neighbouring look-alikes ("CT", "CR", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /kɑs/. Frequency #6,553 among 5,599 “C” headwords. Gloss: "Synonym of romaine lettuce, a long-leaved variety of lettuce.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for cos, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "CT", "CR", "cs", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: Clipping of cos lettuce, variously derived from the Greek island of Kos and from Arabic خس (ḵass, “lettuce”). The correct English form is cos, spelled C-O-S.
Definition
- 1Synonym of romaine lettuce, a long-leaved variety of lettuce.
Etymology
Clipping of cos lettuce, variously derived from the Greek island of Kos and from Arabic خس (ḵass, “lettuce”).
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 "cos", not the corpus desk frequency band.