Which to use
“bear” and “bears” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #1,985
- “bear” frequency rank
- #4,001
- “bears” frequency rank
- 5986
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | bear | bears |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A large, generally omnivorous mammal (a few species are purely carnivorous or herbivorous), having shaggy fur, a very small tail, and flat feet; a member of the family Ursidae. | plural of bear |
Where the eye mixes bear and bears
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. bear (/bɛə/) and bears (/bɛɹz/) 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 1 extra letter(s) - “bear” sits inside “bears”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5986, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
bear is recorded at frequency rank #1,985, classified as anoun, pronounced /bɛə/. bears is at rank #4,001, tagged as anoun, pronounced /bɛɹz/.
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 5986, this pair ranks #513,249 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of bear vs bears
Shared letters: aber. Private to "bear": -. Private to "bears": s.
"bear" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "bears" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC