BabelvsbareWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Babel is a noun, bare is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Babel” is a noun and “bare” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#38,618
“Babel” frequency rank
#31,448
“bare” frequency rank
70066
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Babel bare
Definition hebräischer Name für Babylon Nominativ Singular Femininum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs bar

Where the eye mixes Babel and bare

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
Babel
4 ch
bare

Visual trap between Babel and bare

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Babel is [ˈbaːbl̩] while bare is [ˈbaːʁə]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 70066, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Babel is recorded at frequency rank #38,618, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈbaːbl̩]. bare is at rank #31,448, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈbaːʁə].

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 70066, this pair ranks #457,503 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Babel vs bare

Shared letters: abe. Private to "Babel": l. Private to "bare": r.

"Babel" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "bare" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Babelbabbel · babell · bable · baebl · bbabel · bbael
  • barebarre · bbare · brae

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Babel" for "bare" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Babel" is a noun and "bare" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Babel" or "bare" show up more?
"bare" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #31,448 in our German list, against #38,618 for "Babel". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Babel" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bare" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #457,503 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Babel" and "bare" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Babel vs Bibeln". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #457,503 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list