bail
\baj\
The verdict
“bail” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #4,467) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #4,467
- frequency rank, French
- 4,251
- “B” headwords
- 4
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Contrat par lequel on donne à quelqu’un la jouissance d’une chose, moyennant un prix convenu et pour un temps déterminé.
Corpus desk
Index FR-bail · bail · French
bail · rank #4,467 · 4 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #4,467
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-LOW 4 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,251
- PHOTO-FINISH assumer
Nearest frequency peer: assumer (-1 rank slots)
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.
Voisins de fréquence du confusable « bail »
Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous
- AFP
AFP
95,538 corpus weight
- assumer
assumer
95,535 corpus weight
- bail
bail
95,534 corpus weight
- banc
banc
95,533 corpus weight
- bosser
bosser
95,532 corpus weight
- chanteuse
chanteuse
95,531 corpus weight
What this shows Les barres placent « bail » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.
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 | bail |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \baj\ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #4,467 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Rang de corpus près des confusables de « bail »
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for bail is neighbouring look-alikes ("bi", "BL", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \baj\. Frequency #4,467 among 4,251 “B” headwords. 3 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
Our generated misspelling index lists 4 likely wrong-spelling variants for bail, with forms such as "abil", "baill", and "bbail". 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, "bi", "BL", "bas", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct French form is bail, spelled B-A-I-L.
Definition
- 1Contrat par lequel on donne à quelqu’un la jouissance d’une chose, moyennant un prix convenu et pour un temps déterminé.
- 2Contrat portant sur la location des propriétés foncières ou immobilières.
- 3Longue durée.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how bail appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
La vie de l’homme est ainsi faite qu’elle est une acceptation perpétuelle de la mort ; oubli inconscient ou résignation philosophique, l’homme jouit d’un bien qu’il ne possède pas et dont aucun bail ne lui assure la durée. Que l’orage de mort passe donc ! qu’il nous emporte plusieurs ou beaucoup à la fois ! Y songer, s’en alarmer sans cesse, c’est mourir…
Le bail de la caserne de gendarmerie de Saint-Nicolas-du-Pélem expire le 31 décembre 1880, celui de Mûr le 30 avril 1881, et ceux de Bégard et Quintin le 30 septembre 1881. M. de Boisboissel, propriétaire de la caserne actuelle de Saint-Nicolas-du-Pélem, consent à renouveler le bail, mais moyennant une augmentation de 600 fr., ce qui élèverait le prix du…
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- abil
- baill
- bbail
- bial
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of bail - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "bail", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).