bentvsbiensTell them apart

Which to use

“bent” and “biens” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#39,668
“bent” frequency rank
#1,851
“biens” frequency rank
41519
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bent biens
Definition Type de bicyclette sur laquelle on pédale couché sur le dos. Pluriel de bien.

Where the eye mixes bent and biens

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. bent runs 4 letters (CVCC) against biens's 5 (CVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
bent
5 ch
biens

Visual trap between bent and biens

A purely visual mix-up. bent (\bɛnt\) and biens (\bjɛ̃\) 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 41519, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bent is recorded at frequency rank #39,668, classified as anoun, pronounced \bɛnt\. biens is at rank #1,851, tagged as anoun, pronounced \bjɛ̃\.

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 41519, this pair ranks #232,498 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of bent vs biens

Shared letters: ben. Private to "bent": t. Private to "biens": is.

"bent" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "biens" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bent ← bbent · bennt · bentt · betn · bnet · ebnt
  • biens ← bbiens · beins · bienns · bienss · biesn · bines · ibens

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "bent" and "biens" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\bɛnt\ versus \bjɛ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "bent" or "biens"?
"biens" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,851 in our French list, against #39,668 for "bent". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "bent" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "biens" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #232,498 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bent" and "biens" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bent vs ber". 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 #232,498 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