costs
/ˈkɔsts/
"costs" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“costs” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #1,163 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #1,163
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - plural of cost
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 | costs |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈkɔsts/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #1,163 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “costs” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for costs is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈkɔsts/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,163 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "plural of cost".
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for costs, with forms such as "ccosts", "cossts", and "costss". 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, "CSS", "cot", "CST", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct English form is costs, spelled C-O-S-T-S.
Definition
- 1plural of cost
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ccosts,cossts,costss,costts,cotss,csots,ocsts
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of costs - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 “costs”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-O-S-T-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈkɔsts/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “CSS” - see the side-by-side comparison. costs vs CSS
- 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.