Cosby
"cosby" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“Cosby” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #21,761 in English word frequency and used as a proper noun.
- #21,761
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A village and civil parish in Blaby district, Leicestershire, England (OS grid ref SP5495).
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 | Cosby |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #21,761 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “Cosby” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for Cosby is 5 letters long, classified as a proper noun. Corpus data places it at rank #21,761 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for Cosby, with forms such as "ccosby", "cobsy", and "cosbby". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "coy", "cost", "cozy", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From the Old English personal name *Cossa + Old Norse býr (“farm; settlement”). The correct English form is Cosby, spelled C-O-S-B-Y.
Definition
- 1A village and civil parish in Blaby district, Leicestershire, England (OS grid ref SP5495).
- 2A village in Andrew County, Missouri, United States.
- 3A census-designated place in Cocke County, Tennessee, United States.
- 4A habitational surname.
Etymology
From the Old English personal name *Cossa + Old Norse býr (“farm; settlement”).
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ccosby,cobsy,cosbby,cosbyy,cossby,cosyb,csoby,ocsby
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of Cosby - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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
How do you spell "Cosby"?
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Using “Cosby”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-O-S-B-Y - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Don't mix it up with “coy” - see the side-by-side comparison. Cosby vs coy
- 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.