cougar
/ˈkuːɡə/
"cougar" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“cougar” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #17,580 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #17,580
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 6
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A wild feline, of species Puma concolor, native to the Americas.
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 | cougar |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈkuːɡə/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #17,580 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 6 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “cougar” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for cougar is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈkuːɡə/. Corpus data places it at rank #17,580 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 2 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 cougar, with forms such as "ccougar", "coguar", and "couagr". 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 6 confusable-pair relationships, "cour", "cough", "cigar", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From French couguar, from Portuguese cuguardo, a deformation of Brazilian Portuguese suçuarana (earlier çuçuarana), from Old Tupi sûasuarana. The correct English form is cougar, spelled C-O-U-G-A-R.
Definition
- 1A wild feline, of species Puma concolor, native to the Americas.
- 2An older woman who actively seeks the casual, often sexual, companionship of younger men, by implication a female “sexual predator”.
Etymology
From French couguar, from Portuguese cuguardo, a deformation of Brazilian Portuguese suçuarana (earlier çuçuarana), from Old Tupi sûasuarana.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ccougar,coguar,couagr,cougarr,couggar,cougra,cuogar,ocugar
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of cougar - 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
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Using “cougar”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-O-U-G-A-R - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈkuːɡə/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “cour” - see the side-by-side comparison. cougar vs cour
- 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.