bohnvsboneWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#39,253
“bohn” frequency rank
#30,966
“bone” frequency rank
70219
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bohn bone
Definition 2. Person Singular Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs bohnen Knochen

Where the eye mixes bohn and bone

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. bohn (CVCC) and bone (CVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
bohn
4 ch
bone

Look-alike desk: bohn vs bone

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: bohn is [boːn] while bone is [bəʊn]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 70219, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bohn is recorded at frequency rank #39,253, classified as averb, pronounced [boːn]. bone is at rank #30,966, tagged as anoun, pronounced [bəʊn].

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 70219, this pair ranks #452,920 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of bohn vs bone

Shared letters: bno. Private to "bohn": h. Private to "bone": e.

"bohn" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "bone" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bohn ← bbohn · bhon · bohhn · bohnn · bonh · obhn
  • bone ← bbone · bnoe

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "bohn" for "bone" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "bohn" is a verb and "bone" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "bohn" or "bone" show up more?
"bone" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,966 in our German list, against #39,253 for "bohn". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "bohn" and "bone" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "bohn" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bone" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #452,920 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bohn" and "bone" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bohn vs brun". 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 #452,920 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