bellvsbillsWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#9,689
“bell” frequency rank
#48,785
“bills” frequency rank
58474
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bell bills
Definition 2. Person Singular Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs bellen Plural des Substantivs bill

Letter map: bell vs bills

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

4 ch
bell
5 ch
bills

Part-of-speech tell for bell / bills

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: bell is averb and billsanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58474, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bell is recorded at frequency rank #9,689, classified as averb, pronounced [bɛl]. bills is at rank #48,785, 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 58474, this pair ranks #861,367 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of bell vs bills

Shared letters: bl. Private to "bell": e. Private to "bills": is.

"bell" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "bills" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bell ← bbell · bel · blel · ebll
  • bills ← bbills · billss · bils · bilsl · blils · iblls

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "bell" for "bills" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "bell" is a verb and "bills" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "bell" vs "bills" - which ranks higher?
"bell" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,689 in our German list, against #48,785 for "bills". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "bell" vs "bills" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "bell" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bills" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #861,367 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bell" and "bills" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bills 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 #861,367 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