cous
/ˈkʌz/
"cous" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“cous” is uncommon English (frequency #71,422 among 5,599 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #71,422
- frequency rank, English
- 5,599
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - cousin (usually as a term of address, but not necessarily towards one's cousin)
Corpus desk
Index EN-cous · cous · English
cous · rank #71,422 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #71,422
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,599
- PHOTO-FINISH corne
Nearest frequency peer: corne (-2 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.
Long-tail ranks near “cous”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- contextuali…
contextualize
28,584 corpus weight
- contralater…
contralateral
28,583 corpus weight
- corne
corne
28,581 corpus weight
- cous
cous
28,579 corpus weight
- creat
creat
28,577 corpus weight
- Cromartie
Cromartie
28,576 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “cous” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | cous |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈkʌz/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #71,422 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “cous” in English
Rare enough to double-check
cous is uncommon English at frequency #71,422 among 5,599 “C” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈkʌz/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "cousin (usually as a term of address, but not necessarily towards one's cousin)".
cous doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: Clipping of cousin. The correct English form is cous, spelled C-O-U-S.
Definition
- 1cousin (usually as a term of address, but not necessarily towards one's cousin)
Etymology
Clipping of cousin.
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 "cous", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).