birdsvsbondsWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#32,707
“birds” frequency rank
#27,343
“bonds” frequency rank
60050
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature birds bonds
Definition Pluriel de bird. Pluriel de bond.

Where the eye mixes birds and bonds

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

5 ch
birds
5 ch
bonds

Look-alike desk: birds vs bonds

A purely visual mix-up. birds (\ˈbɝdz\) and bonds (\bɔ̃\) 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 60050, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

birds is recorded at frequency rank #32,707, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈbɝdz\. bonds is at rank #27,343, tagged as anoun, pronounced \bɔ̃\.

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 60050, this pair ranks #99,725 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of birds vs bonds

Shared letters: bds. Private to "birds": ir. Private to "bonds": no.

"birds" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC  ·  "bonds" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • birds ← bbirds · bidrs · birdds · birdss · birrds · birsd · brids · ibrds
  • bonds ← bbonds · bnods · bodns · bondds · bondss · bonnds · bonsd · obnds

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "birds" and "bonds" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ˈbɝdz\ versus \bɔ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "birds" or "bonds"?
"bonds" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,343 in our French list, against #32,707 for "birds". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "birds" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bonds" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #99,725 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "birds" and "bonds" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "birds vs bordés". 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 #99,725 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