Which to use
“bites” and “blues” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #9,708
- “bites” frequency rank
- #4,002
- “blues” frequency rank
- 13710
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | bites | blues |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | plural of bite | plural of blue |
Where the eye mixes bites and blues
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses bites with blues
A purely visual mix-up. bites (/baɪts/) and blues (/bluːz/) 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 13710, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
bites is recorded at frequency rank #9,708, classified as anoun, pronounced /baɪts/. blues is at rank #4,002, tagged as anoun, pronounced /bluːz/.
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 13710, this pair ranks #474,249 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of bites vs blues
Shared letters: bes. Private to "bites": it. Private to "blues": lu.
"bites" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "blues" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "bites" and "blues" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "bites" or "blues" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "bites" and "blues" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "bites" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "blues" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #474,249 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "bites" and "blues" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bites vs bodes". 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 #474,249 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.