bulldogvsbullionTell them apart

Which to use

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

#17,562
“bulldog” frequency rank
#22,913
“bullion” frequency rank
40475
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bulldog bullion
Definition A breed of dog developed in England by the crossing of the bullbaiting dog and the Pug to produce a ladies' companion dog, having a very smooth coat, a flattened face, wrinkly cheeks, powerful front legs, and smaller hind legs. A bulk quantity of precious metal, usually gold or silver, assessed by weight and typically cast as ingots.

Where the eye mixes bulldog and bullion

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. bulldog (CVCCCVC) and bullion (CVCCVVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
bulldog
7 ch
bullion

Visual trap between bulldog and bullion

A purely visual mix-up. bulldog (/ˈbʊl.dɒɡ/) and bullion (/ˈbʊl.jən/) 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 40475, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bulldog is recorded at frequency rank #17,562, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈbʊl.dɒɡ/. bullion is at rank #22,913, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈbʊl.jən/.

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 40475, this pair ranks #267,242 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of bulldog vs bullion

Shared letters: blou. Private to "bulldog": dg. Private to "bullion": in.

"bulldog" · 7 letters · shape CVCCCVC  ·  "bullion" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bulldog ← bbulldog · bluldog · buldlog · buldog · bullddog · bulldgo · bulldogg · bullodg
  • bullion ← bbullion · blulion · bulilon · bulion · bullino · bullionn · bulloin · ubllion

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "bulldog" and "bullion" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ˈbʊl.dɒɡ/ versus /ˈbʊl.jən/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary English text, does "bulldog" or "bullion" show up more?
"bulldog" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,562 in our English list, against #22,913 for "bullion". 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 "bulldog" and "bullion" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "bulldog" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bullion" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #267,242 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bulldog" and "bullion" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ballon vs bullion". 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 #267,242 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