cow
/kaʊ/
"cow" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“cow” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #5,670) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #5,670
- frequency rank, English
- 5,599
- “C” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - An adult female of the species Bos taurus, especially one that has calved.
Corpus desk
Index EN-cow · cow · English
cow · rank #5,670 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #5,670
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,599
- PHOTO-FINISH corrupt
Nearest frequency peer: corrupt (-1 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.
Frequency neighbours of confusable “cow”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- contacts
contacts
94,334 corpus weight
- conviction
conviction
94,333 corpus weight
- corrupt
corrupt
94,332 corpus weight
- cow
cow
94,331 corpus weight
- curve
curve
94,330 corpus weight
- depressed
depressed
94,329 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “cow” against nearest ranked English headwords, not a reprint of the confusable-pair desk.
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 | cow |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /kaʊ/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #5,670 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “cow”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for cow is neighbouring look-alikes ("CT", "CR", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /kaʊ/. Frequency #5,670 among 5,599 “C” headwords. 9 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
No generated misspelling entries exist for cow in our index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "CT", "CR", "cs", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *gʷṓws Proto-Germanic *kōz Proto-West Germanic *kō Old English cū Middle English cow English cow Inherited from Middle English cow, cou, from Old English cū (“cow”), from Proto-West Germanic *kō, from Proto-Germanic *kōz (… The correct English form is cow, spelled C-O-W.
Definition
- 1An adult female of the species Bos taurus, especially one that has calved.
- 2Any member of the species Bos taurus that is not of a bucking breed or fighting breed, regardless of sex or age, including steers and calves.
- 3Beef: the meat of cattle as food.
- 4Any bovines or bovids generally, including yaks, buffalo, etc.
- 5A female member of other large species of mammal, including the bovines, moose, whales, seals, hippos, rhinos, manatees, and elephants.
- 6A woman considered unpleasant in some way, particularly one considered nasty, stupid, fat, lazy, or difficult.
- 7A chock: a wedge or brake used to stop a machine or car.
- 8A third-year cadet at West Point.
- 9A fish that is very large for its species, such as a large striped bass or large bluefin tuna.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how cow appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The whole herd is out to pasture right now — the cows, calves, and heifers are out back, and the bulls are down by the creek.
We saw lots of cows at the farm show, including some surprisingly gigantic bulls.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *gʷṓws Proto-Germanic *kōz Proto-West Germanic *kō Old English cū Middle English cow English cow Inherited from Middle English cow, cou, from Old English cū (“cow”), from Proto-West Germanic *kō, from Proto-Germanic *kōz (“cow”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷṓws (“cow”). Cognate with Sanskrit गो (go), Ancient Greek βοῦς (boûs), Persian گاو (gâv)), Latvian govs (“cow”), Proto-Slavic *govędo (Serbo-Croatian govedo, Russian говядина (govjadina, “beef”), Scots coo (“cow”), North Frisian ko, kø (“cow”), West Frisian ko (“cow”), Dutch koe (“cow”), Low German Koh, Koo, Kau (“cow”), German Kuh (“cow”), Swedish ko (“cow”), Norwegian ku (“cow”), Icelandic kýr (“cow”), Latin bōs (“ox, bull, cow”) (whence English beef), Armenian կով (kov, “cow”). Doublet of beef. The plural kine is from Middle English kyne, kyn, kuin, kiin, kien (“cows”), either a double plural of Middle English ky, kye (“cows”), equivalent to modern kye + -en, or inherited from Old English cūna (“cows', of cows”), genitive plural of cū (“cow”).
This word in other languages
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
How do you spell "cow"?
What does "cow" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "cow"?
How do you pronounce "cow"?
What is the origin of the word "cow"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "cow", not the corpus desk frequency band.