bearvsBohrWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: bear is a noun, Bohr is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“bear” is a noun and “Bohr” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,985
“bear” frequency rank
#44,090
“Bohr” frequency rank
46075
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bear Bohr
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. A surname.

Letter map: bear vs Bohr

Shared letters muted; letters that set bear and Bohr apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. bear (CVVC) and Bohr (CVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
bear
4 ch
Bohr

Grammar separator: bear vs Bohr

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: bear is anoun and Bohraname. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46075, 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/. Bohr is at rank #44,090, tagged as aname.

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 46075, this pair ranks #215,235 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of bear vs Bohr

Shared letters: br. Private to "bear": ae. Private to "Bohr": ho.

"bear" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "Bohr" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bear ← baer · bbear · bearr · bera · ebar
  • Bohr ← bbohr · bhor · bohhr · bohrr · borh · obhr

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "bear" for "Bohr" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "bear" is a noun and "Bohr" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "bear" vs "Bohr" - which ranks higher?
"bear" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,985 in our English list, against #44,090 for "Bohr". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "bear" vs "Bohr" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "bear" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Bohr" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #215,235 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bear" and "Bohr" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Boers vs Bohr". 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 #215,235 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list