bladesvsbodesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#8,642
“blades” frequency rank
#48,094
“bodes” frequency rank
56736
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature blades bodes
Definition plural of blade plural of bode

Where the eye mixes blades and bodes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
blades
5 ch
bodes

Why the eye confuses blades with bodes

A purely visual mix-up. blades (/bleɪdz/) and bodes (/bəʊdz/) 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 56736, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

blades is recorded at frequency rank #8,642, classified as anoun, pronounced /bleɪdz/. bodes is at rank #48,094, tagged as anoun, pronounced /bəʊdz/.

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 56736, this pair ranks #124,094 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of blades vs bodes

Shared letters: bdes. Private to "blades": al. Private to "bodes": o.

"blades" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC  ·  "bodes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bladesbaldes · bblades · bladdes · bladess · bladse · blaeds · bldaes · bllades
  • bodesbbodes · bdoes · boddes · bodess · bodse · boeds · obdes

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "blades" and "bodes" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/bleɪdz/ versus /bəʊdz/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "blades" or "bodes"?
"blades" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,642 in our English list, against #48,094 for "bodes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "blades" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bodes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #124,094 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "blades" and "bodes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bodes vs Bodie". 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 #124,094 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