cos
Abbreviation with 3 meanings
| Stands for | Cosine |
|---|---|
| Meanings | 3 |
| Categories | Units & Measurements, Business & Finance |
| Also written | COS, CoS |
cos has three meanings. The most common are Cosine (math) and Chief of staff (job title); it can also stand for Cost of sales.
Meanings of cos at a glance
| # | cos stands for | Context |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cosine | Units & Measurements › Math |
| 2 | Chief of staff | Business & Finance › Job Title |
| 3 | Cost of sales | Business & Finance › Accounting |
1. Cosine
Units & Measurements · Math Abbreviations
The trigonometric function giving the ratio of the side adjacent to an angle to the hypotenuse in a right triangle; on the unit circle it is the x-coordinate. Cosine is the sine of the complementary angle: cos θ = sin(90° − θ).
Example: The horizontal component of the force is F cos 40°.
The name is short for "complementary sine"; Edmund Gunter used the form co.sinus in 1620. The law of cosines, c² = a² + b² − 2ab cos C, generalizes the Pythagorean theorem to any triangle. In machine learning, cosine similarity measures how closely two vectors point in the same direction.
2. Chief of staff (CoS)
Business & Finance · Job Title Abbreviations
Senior adviser who manages a leader's priorities, schedule, communications and key projects, acting as a force multiplier for a CEO, executive or government official. A corporate CoS often coordinates the leadership team and drives cross-functional initiatives.
Example: The CEO's CoS runs the weekly leadership meeting and tracks every action item to completion.
The role originated in military staff systems and became widely known through the White House Chief of Staff. It has spread in technology companies, where chiefs of staff are often high performers on a leadership track. Plural chiefs of staff.
3. Cost of sales (COS)
Business & Finance · Accounting Abbreviations
Direct costs attributable to producing the goods or services a company sold during a period, used largely interchangeably with cost of goods sold. The term is common under IFRS, in UK reporting and among service and software companies.
Example: Cost of sales, shown as COS in the management accounts, includes hosting fees and support staff salaries.
Some companies use "cost of revenue" when much of their revenue comes from services. Which costs are included varies, so gross margins are not always comparable between companies. IFRS allows expenses to be presented by function, including cost of sales, or by nature, such as raw materials and employee costs.
Related abbreviations
More math abbreviations
- BODMAS – Brackets, Orders, Division/Multiplication, Addition/Subtraction
- C – Complex numbers
- cis – Cosine plus i sine
- Cor – Corollary
- cosec – Cosecant
- cosh – Hyperbolic cosine
- cot – Cotangent
- CPCTC – Corresponding parts of congruent triangles are congruent
See all 91 math abbreviations →