Which to use
“balmy” and “bawdy” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #41,521
- “balmy” frequency rank
- #49,205
- “bawdy” frequency rank
- 90726
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | balmy | bawdy |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Producing balm. | Obscene; filthy; unchaste. |
Where the eye mixes balmy and bawdy
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. balmy and bawdy follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between balmy and bawdy
A purely visual mix-up. balmy (/ˈbɑː.mi/) and bawdy (/ˈbɔːdi/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 90726, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
balmy is recorded at frequency rank #41,521, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈbɑː.mi/. bawdy is at rank #49,205, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈbɔːdi/.
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 90726, this pair ranks #3,928 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of balmy vs bawdy
Shared letters: aby. Private to "balmy": lm. Private to "bawdy": dw.
"balmy" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "bawdy" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "balmy" for "bawdy" ever safe?
Which is more common, "balmy" or "bawdy"?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "balmy" and "bawdy" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "balmy" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "bawdy" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #3,928 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "balmy" and "bawdy" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bawdy vs bendy". 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 #3,928 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.