cossus
\kɔ.sy\
The verdict
“cossus” is uncommon French (frequency #85,600 among 8,609 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #85,600
- frequency rank, French
- 8,609
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Lépidoptère dont la larve de la seule espèce d'Europe ronge le bois.
Corpus desk
Index FR-cossus · cossus · French
cossus · rank #85,600 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #85,600
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 8,609
- PHOTO-FINISH cossue
Nearest frequency peer: cossue (-1 rank slots)
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.
Rangs de longue queue près de « cossus »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- cornue
cornue
14,404 corpus weight
- coronarien
coronarien
14,403 corpus weight
- cossue
cossue
14,402 corpus weight
- cossus
cossus
14,401 corpus weight
- couchsurfing
couchsurfing
14,400 corpus weight
- courvoisier
courvoisier
14,399 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « cossus » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | cossus |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \kɔ.sy\ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #85,600 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « cossus » en français
Rare enough to double-check
cossus is uncommon French at frequency #85,600 among 8,609 “C” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \kɔ.sy\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Lépidoptère dont la larve de la seule espèce d'Europe ronge le bois.".
cossus has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is cossus, spelled C-O-S-S-U-S.
Definition
- 1Lépidoptère dont la larve de la seule espèce d'Europe ronge le bois.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how cossus appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
La chenille du cossus creuse des galeries dans le tronc des saules, des peupliers, et. ; parfois aussi, des poiriers ou autres arbres fruitiers.
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 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "cossus", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).