Born or borne?
Both are forms of bear: born is the past participle of bear, and borne the past participle of bear. On its own, born is an adjective meaning “Having from birth (or as if from birth) a certain quality or…”, and borne an adjective meaning “carried, supported”. They sound the same (/bɔːn/). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) born is about 26 times as common as borne.
What is the difference between born and borne?
| born | borne | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | adjective, noun, verb | adjective, suffix, verb |
| Meaning | Having from birth (or as if from birth) a certain quality or character; innate; inherited | carried, supported carried or spread by |
| Example | In the United States, information describing the operation of nuclear weapons is born secret | air + -borne → airborne (“carried or spread by the air”) |
| Pronunciation | /bɔːn/ /boɹn/ [bo̞ɹn] | /bɔːn/ /boɹn/ [bo̞ɹn] |
| In writing | 123 times per million words | 4.7 times per million words |
Sources: born and borne in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of born and borne
born
- 1
Having from birth (or as if from birth) a certain quality or character; innate; inherited
In the United States, information describing the operation of nuclear weapons is born secret
- 2
Alternative spelling of burn (a stream)
- 3
Alternative spelling of burn (with fire etc.)
borne
- 1
carried, supported
- 2
carried or spread by
air + -borne → airborne (“carried or spread by the air”)
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, born or borne?
born appears 123 times per million words; borne 4.7 times per million words.
born 123 times per million wordsborne 4.7 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search born vs borne?
“born vs borne” is searched about 2,900 times a month on Google and 150 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“borne vs born”, “born or borne”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.