bid vs bis, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“bid” is a noun and “bis” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#26,645
“bid” frequency rank: #14,300
“bis” frequency rank: 40945
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	bid	bis
Definition	licitação, lance (num leilão)	até

Letter map: bid vs bis

Shared letters muted; letters that set bid and bis apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch

bid

3 ch

bis

Grammar separator: bid vs bis

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: bid is anoun and bisapreposition. On the page they differ by a single letter - d in “bid” becomes s in “bis”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40945, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bid is recorded at frequency rank #26,645, classified as anoun, pronounced /bɪd/. bis is at rank #14,300, tagged as aprep.

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 40945, this pair ranks #25,078 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of bid vs bis

Shared letters: bi. Private to "bid": d. Private to "bis": s.

"bid" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "bis" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "bid" for "bis" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "bid" is a noun and "bis" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "bid" or "bis"?

"bis" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,300 in our Portuguese list, against #26,645 for "bid". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "bid" and "bis". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "bid" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "bis" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #25,078 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"bid" and "bis" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bid vs bile". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #25,078 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.