barbervsbareTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#46,502
“barber” frequency rank
#31,448
“bare” frequency rank
77950
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature barber bare
Definition der Herrenfriseur, der Friseur, der Frisör, der Barbier (veraltet) Nominativ Singular Femininum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs bar

Letter map: barber vs bare

Shared letters muted; letters that set barber and bare apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

6 ch
barber
4 ch
bare

Part-of-speech tell for barber / bare

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: barber is anoun and bareanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 77950, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

barber is recorded at frequency rank #46,502, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. 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 77950, this pair ranks #249,186 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of barber vs bare

Shared letters: aber. Private to "barber": -. Private to "bare": -.

"barber" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "bare" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • barberabrber · babrer · barbber · barberr · barbre · barebr · barrber · bbarber
  • barebarre · bbare · brae

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "barber" and "bare" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "barber" is a noun and "bare" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "barber" or "bare"?
"bare" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #31,448 in our German list, against #46,502 for "barber". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "barber" vs "bare" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "barber" 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 #249,186 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "barber" and "bare" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "barber vs puzzles". 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 #249,186 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