Which to use
“bandage” and “bondage” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #21,140
- “bandage” frequency rank
- #15,759
- “bondage” frequency rank
- 36899
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | bandage | bondage |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A strip of gauze or similar material used to protect or support a wound or injury. | The state of being enslaved or the practice of slavery. |
Where the eye mixes bandage and bondage
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. bandage and bondage follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: bandage vs bondage
A purely visual mix-up. bandage (/ˈbændɪd͡ʒ/) and bondage (/ˈbɒn.dɪd͡ʒ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - a in “bandage” becomes o in “bondage”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 36899, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
bandage is recorded at frequency rank #21,140, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈbændɪd͡ʒ/. bondage is at rank #15,759, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈbɒn.dɪd͡ʒ/.
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 36899, this pair ranks #299,163 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of bandage vs bondage
Shared letters: abdegn. Private to "bandage": -. Private to "bondage": o.
"bandage" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV · "bondage" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "bandage" for "bondage" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "bandage" or "bondage" show up more?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "bandage" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "bondage" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #299,163 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "bandage" and "bondage" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bandage vs bandar". 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 #299,163 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.