Which to use
“bills” and “bulls” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #38,677
- “bills” frequency rank
- #21,557
- “bulls” frequency rank
- 60234
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | bills | bulls |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel de bill. | Pluriel de bull. |
Where the eye mixes bills and bulls
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. bills and bulls follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between bills and bulls
A purely visual mix-up. bills (\bil\) and bulls (\byl\) 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 a single letter - i in “bills” becomes u in “bulls”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60234, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
bills is recorded at frequency rank #38,677, classified as anoun, pronounced \bil\. bulls is at rank #21,557, tagged as anoun, pronounced \byl\.
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 60234, this pair ranks #98,723 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of bills vs bulls
Shared letters: bls. Private to "bills": i. Private to "bulls": u.
"bills" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC · "bulls" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "bills" for "bulls" ever safe?
Which is more common, "bills" or "bulls"?
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 "bills" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "bulls" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #98,723 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "bills" and "bulls" 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 #98,723 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.