balvsbathTell them apart

Which to use

“bal” and “bath” are a confusable Spanish pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#30,776
“bal” frequency rank
#46,361
“bath” frequency rank
77137
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bal bath
Definition Miel. Baño.

Where the eye mixes bal and bath

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. bal runs 3 letters (CVC) against bath's 4 (CVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
bal
4 ch
bath

Look-alike desk: bal vs bath

A purely visual mix-up. bal ([bal]) and bath (/bɑːθ/) 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 77137, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bal is recorded at frequency rank #30,776, classified as anoun, pronounced [bal]. bath is at rank #46,361, tagged as anoun, pronounced /bɑːθ/.

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 77137, this pair ranks #16,513 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of bal vs bath

Shared letters: ab. Private to "bal": l. Private to "bath": ht.

"bal" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "bath" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bath ← abth · baht · bathh · batth · bbath · btah · vath

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "bal" for "bath" ever safe?
No. They are said differently ([bal] versus /bɑːθ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "bal" or "bath"?
"bal" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,776 in our Spanish list, against #46,361 for "bath". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "bal" and "bath" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "bal" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bath" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #16,513 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bal" and "bath" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bane vs bath". 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 #16,513 of 323,831 scored Spanish pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list