כּוֹס Little owl (kos)
Every verse in which this word stands as the creature — 3 places, in canonical order, first appearance to last. The word's lexicon entry carries more than the creature, so these are the creature's own verses — the row's note says what the other places are.
The kos — in both kosher lists, and the Psalmist alone 'like a kos of the ruins.' The same letters are far more often the cup, under the same lexicon entry, so this row counts only the three verses of the bird; the identification (a small owl) is discussed.
וְאֶת־הַכּוֹס וְאֶת־הַשָּׁלָךְ וְאֶת־הַיַּנְשֽׁוּף
and the little owl, and the cormorant, and the great owl;
אֶת־הַכּוֹס וְאֶת־הַיַּנְשׁוּף וְהַתִּנְשָֽׁמֶת
the little owl, and the great owl, and the horned owl;
דָּמִיתִי לִקְאַת מִדְבָּר הָיִיתִי כְּכוֹס חֳרָבֽוֹת
I am like a pelican of the wilderness; I am become as an owl of the waste places.
Quick answers
What is the Hebrew word for little owl?
Little owl in Hebrew is כוס, with a gematria of 86 in the standard method.
How many times is the little owl mentioned in the Tanakh?
The word stands 3 times as the creature, first at Leviticus 11:17.
A spelling is not a word. The bare letters כוס stand 18 times in the corpus, which is a different question and often a different number: the same letters can spell a name or another word entirely, and the creature written with a particle attached is a spelling that search never returns. It is here, as itself.
See all 18 occurrences of the spelling כוס →