belavsbeteWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: bela is a noun, bete is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“bela” is a noun and “bete” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#47,185
“bela” frequency rank
#34,434
“bete” frequency rank
81619
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bela bete
Definition Voile. (se) Remplir, combler.

Letter map: bela vs bete

Shared letters muted; letters that set bela and bete apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. bela and bete follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
bela
4 ch
bete

Role in the sentence - bela and bete

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: bela is anoun and beteaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 81619, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bela is recorded at frequency rank #47,185, classified as anoun. bete is at rank #34,434, tagged as averb, pronounced \be.t̻e̻\.

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 81619, this pair ranks #18,370 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of bela vs bete

Shared letters: be. Private to "bela": al. Private to "bete": t.

"bela" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "bete" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bela ← bbela · beal · blea · ebla
  • bete ← bbete · beet · btee · ebte

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "bela" and "bete" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "bela" is a noun and "bete" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "bela" or "bete" show up more?
"bete" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #34,434 in our French list, against #47,185 for "bela". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "bela" and "bete".

  • Full dictionary entry for "bela" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bete" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #18,370 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bela" and "bete" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bela vs bold". 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 #18,370 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list