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PlainSpell

cosplay

/ˈkɑz.pleɪ/noun, verb

cosplay is spelled C-O-S-P-L-A-Y. The wrong spelling people search most is costplay: about 40 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 313 of all searches for the word. Cosplay is a noun meaning “The art or practice of costuming oneself as a (usually fictional) character”. The plural of cosplay is cosplays.

How many letters and syllables are in cosplay?

Letters7: C-O-S-P-L-A-Y
Syllables2 (from its pronunciation)
In writing2.6 times per million words; the 16,687th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched1; the most searched, costplay, about 40 Bing searches a month (all of them)
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How do you spell cosplay?

Cosplay is spelled C-O-S-P-L-A-Y. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 312 of the searches for cosplay in either form.

cosplaythe right spelling12,420 searches a month
costplayan extra t40 searches a month

Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.

How common is cosplay?

Cosplay appears 2.6 times per million words in written English, the 16,687th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce cosplay?

  • UK /ˈkɒz.pleɪ/
  • UK /ˈkɒs.pleɪ/
  • US /ˈkɑz.pleɪ/

Cosplay has 2 syllables (counted from the pronunciation).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-cosplay.wav, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Wodencafe-cosplay.wav, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Naomi_Persephone_Amethyst_(NaomiAmethyst)-cosplay.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

What rhymes with cosplay?

No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as cosplay (/ɑzpleɪ/).

Spelled with the same letters in another order: calypso.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of cosplay

  • cosplays plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • cosplaying participle, present
  • cosplayed participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does cosplay mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    The art or practice of costuming oneself as a (usually fictional) character.

  2. 2

    A skit or instance of this art or practice.

verb

  1. 1

    To costume oneself as a (usually fictional) character.

    She cosplayed at the manga convention.

  2. 2

    To costume oneself as (a [usually fictional] character).

    She cosplayed Sailor Moon at the manga convention.

  3. 3

    derogatoryTo adopt the behavior and mannerisms of another; to pretend to be someone or something.

  4. 4

    derogatoryTo adopt the behavior and mannerisms of (another); to pretend to be (someone or something).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you abbreviate cosplay?

Wiktionary records one abbreviation of cosplay: cosp.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Cosplay in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchcosplay, costumade (subculture centered on dressing as characters), cosplayer, costumader (to costume oneself as a character)
GermanCosplay (subculture centered on dressing as characters)
Portuguesecosplay (subculture centered on dressing as characters), fazer cosplay (to costume oneself as a character)
Spanishcosplay (subculture centered on dressing as characters), vestirse, disfrazarse (to costume oneself as a character), vestirse como, disfrazarse de (to costume oneself as (a character))

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does cosplay come from?

Borrowed from Japanese コスプレ (kosupure), which is a clipping of コスチュームプレイ (kosuchūmu purei), from a compound of English costume + play. The verb is derived from the noun.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after cosplay