cove
/koʊv/
"cove" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“cove” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #12,216 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #12,216
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A hollow in a rock; a cave or cavern.
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 | cove |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /koʊv/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #12,216 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “cove” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for cove is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /koʊv/. Corpus data places it at rank #12,216 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for cove, with forms such as "ccove", "coev", and "covve". 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, "CV", "cow", "cox", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English cove, from Old English cofa (“chamber; den”), from Proto-West Germanic *kobō, from Proto-Germanic *kubô. Cognate with Dutch koof (“cove”), German Low German Koov (“small room”), German Koben (“nook, shed”), Icelandic kofi (“hut, shack”).… The correct English form is cove, spelled C-O-V-E.
Definition
- 1A hollow in a rock; a cave or cavern.
- 2A concave vault or archway, especially the arch of a ceiling.
- 3A small coastal inlet, especially one having high cliffs protecting vessels from prevailing winds; bight.
- 4A strip of prairie extending into woodland.
- 5A recess or sheltered area on the slopes of a mountain.
- 6The wooden roof of the stern gallery of an old sailing warship.
- 7A thin line, sometimes gilded, along a yacht's strake below deck level.
- 8A valley between two ridges, especially one that, opening to the south and east, is protected by ridges on the north and west from common winter storm tracks.
Etymology
From Middle English cove, from Old English cofa (“chamber; den”), from Proto-West Germanic *kobō, from Proto-Germanic *kubô. Cognate with Dutch koof (“cove”), German Low German Koov (“small room”), German Koben (“nook, shed”), Icelandic kofi (“hut, shack”). This word has probably survived as long as it has due to its coincidental phonetic resemblance to the unrelated word English cave. Also unrelated to Spanish cueva, which itself is a cognate of cave.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ccove,coev,covve,cvoe,ocve
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of cove - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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 “cove”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-O-V-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /koʊv/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “CV” - see the side-by-side comparison. cove vs CV
- 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.