bill
/bɪl/
"bill" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“bill” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #729) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #729
- frequency rank, English
- 4,121
- “B” headwords
- 4
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A written list or inventory. (Now obsolete except in specific senses or set phrases; bill of lading, bill of goods, etc.)
Corpus desk
Index EN-bill · bill · English
bill · rank #729 · 4 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-CORE #729
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-LOW 4 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,121
- PHOTO-FINISH became
Nearest frequency peer: became (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbours of confusable “bill”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- worth
worth
99,275 corpus weight
- became
became
99,273 corpus weight
- bill
bill
99,272 corpus weight
- books
books
99,271 corpus weight
- cool
cool
99,270 corpus weight
- director
director
99,269 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “bill” against nearest ranked English headwords, not a reprint of the confusable-pair desk.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | bill |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /bɪl/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #729 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “bill”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for bill is neighbouring look-alikes ("BL", "bit", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /bɪl/. Frequency #729 among 4,121 “B” headwords. 13 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
Our generated misspelling index lists 4 likely wrong-spelling variants for bill, with forms such as "bbill", "bil", and "blil". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "BL", "bit", "bin", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English bille, from Anglo-Norman bille, from Old French bulle, from Medieval Latin bulla (“seal, sealed document”). Doublet of bull (“papal bull; bubble”) and bulla. The correct English form is bill, spelled B-I-L-L.
Definition
- 1A written list or inventory. (Now obsolete except in specific senses or set phrases; bill of lading, bill of goods, etc.)
- 2A document, originally sealed; a formal statement or official memorandum. (Now obsolete except with certain qualifying words; bill of health, bill of sale etc.)
- 3A draft of a law, presented to a legislature for enactment; a proposed or projected law.
- 4A declaration made in writing, stating some wrong the complainant has suffered from the defendant, or a fault committed by some person against a law.
- 5A piece of paper money; a banknote.
- 6A piece of paper money; a banknote.
- 7One hundred pounds sterling.
- 8A written note of goods sold, services rendered, or work done, with the price or charge owing; an invoice.
- 9A written note of goods sold, services rendered, or work done, listing the price or charge paid; a receipt.
- 10A paper, written or printed, and posted up or given away, to advertise something, as a lecture, a play, or the sale of goods
- 11A writing that binds the signer or signers to pay a certain sum at a future day or on demand, with or without interest, as may be stated in the document; a bill of exchange. In the United States, it is usually called a note, a note of hand, or a promissory note.
- 12A set of items presented together.
- 13A list of pupils to be disciplined for breaking school rules.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how bill appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Prime Minister, I beg to introduce a bill entitled[…]
Why, I'll exhibit a bill in the parliament for the putting down of men.
Etymology
From Middle English bille, from Anglo-Norman bille, from Old French bulle, from Medieval Latin bulla (“seal, sealed document”). Doublet of bull (“papal bull; bubble”) and bulla.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- bbill
- bil
- blil
- ibll
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of bill - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "bill", not the corpus desk frequency band.