bielvsbillsTell them apart

Which to use

“biel” and “bills” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#23,446
“biel” frequency rank
#48,785
“bills” frequency rank
72231
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature biel bills
Definition Weiß Plural des Substantivs bill

Letter map: biel vs bills

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

4 ch
biel
5 ch
bills

Pair insight - biel / bills

biel and bills are indexed as a confusable German pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 72231, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

biel is recorded at frequency rank #23,446, classified as anoun, pronounced [bʲɛl]. 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 72231, this pair ranks #394,042 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of biel vs bills

Shared letters: bil. Private to "biel": e. Private to "bills": s.

"biel" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "bills" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • biel ← beil · biell · bile · ibel
  • bills ← bbills · billss · bils · bilsl · blils · iblls

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "biel" and "bills" be used interchangeably?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "biel" vs "bills" - which ranks higher?
"biel" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,446 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.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "biel" 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 #394,042 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "biel" 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 #394,042 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