boresvsbowelsWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#35,207
“bores” frequency rank
#26,019
“bowels” frequency rank
61226
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bores bowels
Definition plural of bore The deepest or innermost part.

Where the eye mixes bores and bowels

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

5 ch
bores
6 ch
bowels

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. bores (/bɔɹz/) and bowels (/ˈbaʊ.əlz/) 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 61226, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bores is recorded at frequency rank #35,207, classified as anoun, pronounced /bɔɹz/. bowels is at rank #26,019, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈbaʊ.əlz/.

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 61226, this pair ranks #95,460 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of bores vs bowels

Shared letters: beos. Private to "bores": r. Private to "bowels": lw.

"bores" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "bowels" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • boresbbores · boress · borres · borse · broes · obres
  • bowelsbbowels · boewls · bowells · bowelss · bowesl · bowwels · bwoels · obwels

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "bores" and "bowels" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/bɔɹz/ versus /ˈbaʊ.əlz/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "bores" or "bowels"?
"bowels" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,019 in our English list, against #35,207 for "bores". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list