bentvsbinTell them apart

Quick tell: bent is a noun, bin is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“bent” is a noun and “bin” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#39,668
“bent” frequency rank
#10,119
“bin” frequency rank
49787
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bent bin
Definition Type de bicyclette sur laquelle on pédale couché sur le dos. Variante de bien.

Where the eye mixes bent and bin

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
bent
3 ch
bin

Why the eye confuses bent with bin

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: bent is \bɛnt\ while bin is \bɛ̃\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49787, 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\. bin is at rank #10,119, tagged as anadv, pronounced \bɛ̃\.

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 49787, this pair ranks #167,858 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of bent vs bin

Shared letters: bn. Private to "bent": et. Private to "bin": i.

"bent" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "bin" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bentbbent · bennt · bentt · betn · bnet · ebnt

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "bent" and "bin" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "bent" is a noun and "bin" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "bent" or "bin" show up more?
"bin" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,119 in our French list, against #39,668 for "bent". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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 "bin" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #167,858 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bent" and "bin" 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 #167,858 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