billesvsbillsTell them apart

Which to use

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

#15,818
“billes” frequency rank
#38,677
“bills” frequency rank
54495
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature billes bills
Definition Pluriel de bille. Pluriel de bill.

Where the eye mixes billes and bills

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. billes runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against bills's 5 (CVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
billes
5 ch
bills

Look-alike desk: billes vs bills

A purely visual mix-up. billes (\bij\) and bills (\bil\) 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 54495, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

billes is recorded at frequency rank #15,818, classified as anoun, pronounced \bij\. bills is at rank #38,677, tagged as anoun, pronounced \bil\.

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 54495, this pair ranks #133,632 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of billes vs bills

Shared letters: bils. Private to "billes": e. Private to "bills": -.

"billes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "bills" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • billes ← bbilles · bilels · biles · billess · billse · bliles · iblles
  • bills ← bbills · billss · bils · bilsl · blils · iblls

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "billes" and "bills" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\bij\ versus \bil\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "billes" or "bills"?
"billes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,818 in our French list, against #38,677 for "bills". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "billes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bills" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #133,632 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "billes" and "bills" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bibles vs bills". 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 #133,632 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