Which to use
“banjo” and “bans” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #36,265
- “banjo” frequency rank
- #36,719
- “bans” frequency rank
- 72984
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | banjo | bans |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Cordophone portable à cordes pincées, à touche garnie de frettes marquant les demi-tons, et à table d’harmonie en membrane de parchemin tendue sur un tambour. | Pluriel de ban. |
Where the eye mixes banjo and bans
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. banjo runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against bans's 4 (CVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: banjo vs bans
A purely visual mix-up. banjo (\bɑ̃.ʒo\) and bans (\bɑ̃\) 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 72984, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
banjo is recorded at frequency rank #36,265, classified as anoun, pronounced \bɑ̃.ʒo\. bans is at rank #36,719, tagged as anoun, pronounced \bɑ̃\.
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 72984, this pair ranks #42,100 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of banjo vs bans
Shared letters: abn. Private to "banjo": jo. Private to "bans": s.
"banjo" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "bans" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "banjo" for "bans" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "banjo" or "bans" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "banjo" and "bans" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "banjo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "bans" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #42,100 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "banjo" and "bans" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "banals vs bans". 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 #42,100 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.