bargvsbearsWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: barg is a verb, bears is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“barg” is a verb and “bears” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#46,504
“barg” frequency rank
#44,472
“bears” frequency rank
90976
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature barg bears
Definition 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs bergen Plural des Substantivs bear

Letter map: barg vs bears

Shared letters muted; letters that set barg and bears apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. barg runs 4 letters (CVCC) against bears's 5 (CVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
barg
5 ch
bears

Part-of-speech tell for barg / bears

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: barg is averb and bearsanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 90976, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

barg is recorded at frequency rank #46,504, classified as averb, pronounced [baʁk]. bears is at rank #44,472, tagged as anoun, pronounced […].

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 90976, this pair ranks #41,955 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of barg vs bears

Shared letters: abr. Private to "barg": g. Private to "bears": es.

"barg" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "bears" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • barg ← abrg · bagr · bargg · barrg · bbarg · brag
  • bears ← bbears · bearrs · bearss · beasr · beras · ebars

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "barg" and "bears" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "barg" is a verb and "bears" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "barg" vs "bears" - which ranks higher?
"bears" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #44,472 in our German list, against #46,504 for "barg". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "barg" and "bears". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "barg" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bears" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #41,955 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "barg" and "bears" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "barg vs Birk". 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 #41,955 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