beavsbearsTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#21,179
“bea” frequency rank
#44,472
“bears” frequency rank
65651
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bea bears
Definition trinken Plural des Substantivs bear

Letter map: bea vs bears

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

3 ch
bea
5 ch
bears

Role in the sentence - bea and bears

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: bea is averb and bearsanoun. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “bea” sits inside “bears”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 65651, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bea is recorded at frequency rank #21,179, classified as averb, pronounced [be̯a]. 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 65651, this pair ranks #599,571 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of bea vs bears

Shared letters: abe. Private to "bea": -. Private to "bears": rs.

"bea" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "bears" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bears ← bbears · bearrs · bearss · beasr · beras · ebars

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "bea" and "bears" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "bea" is a verb and "bears" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "bea" or "bears" show up more?
"bea" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,179 in our German list, against #44,472 for "bears". 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 "bea" and "bears". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "bea" 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 #599,571 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bea" and "bears" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bears 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 #599,571 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