bandsvsBNDWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: bands is a verb, BND is an abbrev, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“bands” is a verb and “BND” is an abbrev - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#5,682
“bands” frequency rank
#10,827
“BND” frequency rank
16509
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bands BND
Definition 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs band Bundesnachrichtendienst

Letter map: bands vs BND

Shared letters muted; letters that set bands and BND apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
bands
3 ch
BND

Part-of-speech tell for bands / BND

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: bands is averb and BNDanabbrev. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16509, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bands is recorded at frequency rank #5,682, classified as averb, pronounced […]. BND is at rank #10,827, tagged as anabbrev, pronounced [beːʔɛnˈdeː].

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 16509, this pair ranks #1,935,257 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of bands vs BND

Shared letters: bdn. Private to "bands": as. Private to "BND": -.

"bands" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC  ·  "BND" · 3 letters · shape CCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bandsabnds · badns · bandds · bandss · bannds · bansd · bbands · bnads

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "bands" for "BND" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "bands" is a verb and "BND" an abbrev, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "bands" or "BND"?
"bands" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,682 in our German list, against #10,827 for "BND". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "bands" vs "BND" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "bands" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "BND" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,935,257 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bands" and "BND" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bic vs BND". 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 #1,935,257 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