borne
/bɔːn/
"borne" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“borne” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #11,658 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #11,658
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - past participle of bear
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | borne |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /bɔːn/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #11,658 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “borne” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for borne is 5 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /bɔːn/. Corpus data places it at rank #11,658 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "past participle of bear".
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for borne, with forms such as "bborne", "bonre", and "boren". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "burn", "Bose", "bree", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English boren, iborne, from Old English boren, ġeboren, past participle of Old English beran (“to carry, bear”). The correct English form is borne, spelled B-O-R-N-E.
Definition
- 1past participle of bear
Etymology
From Middle English boren, iborne, from Old English boren, ġeboren, past participle of Old English beran (“to carry, bear”).
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: bborne,bonre,boren,bornne,borrne,brone,obrne
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of borne - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “borne”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is B-O-R-N-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /bɔːn/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “burn” - see the side-by-side comparison. borne vs burn
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.