bellyvsbevyWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“belly” and “bevy” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#6,026
“belly” frequency rank
#49,788
“bevy” frequency rank
55814
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature belly bevy
Definition The abdomen (especially a fat one). A group of animals, particularly quail.

Where the eye mixes belly and bevy

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. belly runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against bevy's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
belly
4 ch
bevy

Why the eye confuses belly with bevy

A purely visual mix-up. belly (/ˈbɛli/) and bevy (/ˈbɛvi/) 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 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55814, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

belly is recorded at frequency rank #6,026, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈbɛli/. bevy is at rank #49,788, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈbɛvi/.

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 55814, this pair ranks #130,759 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of belly vs bevy

Shared letters: bey. Private to "belly": l. Private to "bevy": v.

"belly" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "bevy" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • belly ← bbelly · bellyy · bely · belyl · blely · eblly
  • bevy ← bbevy · bevvy · bevyy · beyv · bvey · ebvy

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "belly" for "bevy" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈbɛli/ versus /ˈbɛvi/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "belly" vs "bevy" - which ranks higher?
"belly" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,026 in our English list, against #49,788 for "bevy". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "belly" and "bevy" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "belly" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bevy" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #130,759 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "belly" and "bevy" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bendy vs bevy". 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 #130,759 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