# bail vs bel

> English confusable word pair

## The two words

### bail
*noun · IPA /beɪl/ · frequency rank #6,988*
Security, usually a sum of money, exchanged for the release of an arrested person as a guarantee of that person's appearance for trial.

### bel
*noun · IPA /bɛl/ · frequency rank #16,644*
A measure of relative power, defined as log₁₀(P ₁/P ₂), where P₁ and P₂ are the measured and reference power respectively.

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-09-03.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/vs/bail-vs-bel