biasvsbuisWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#45,472
“bias” frequency rank
#28,864
“buis” frequency rank
74336
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bias buis
Definition Préjugé, parti pris. Genre de la famille des Buxacées comprenant l’espèce Buxus sempervirens, arbrisseau sempervirent, dont le bois, jaunâtre et très dur, et surtout celui de sa racine sont d’un grand usage dans la tabletterie. → voir Buxus

Where the eye mixes bias and buis

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. bias and buis follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
bias
4 ch
buis

Visual trap between bias and buis

A purely visual mix-up. bias (\ˈbaɪ.əs\) and buis (\bɥi\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 74336, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bias is recorded at frequency rank #45,472, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈbaɪ.əs\. buis is at rank #28,864, tagged as anoun, pronounced \bɥi\.

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 74336, this pair ranks #37,478 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of bias vs buis

Shared letters: bis. Private to "bias": a. Private to "buis": u.

"bias" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "buis" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bias ← bais · bbias · biass · bisa · ibas
  • buis ← bbuis · bius · buiss · busi · ubis

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "bias" for "buis" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ˈbaɪ.əs\ versus \bɥi\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "bias" or "buis"?
"buis" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,864 in our French list, against #45,472 for "bias". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "bias" and "buis" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "bias" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "buis" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #37,478 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bias" and "buis" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bias vs bihan". 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 #37,478 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