boîte
\bwat\
The verdict
“boîte” is a regularly-used French word, ranked #1,651 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #1,651
- frequency rank, French
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Objet rigide et creux ayant la capacité de se fermer et qui a vocation à accueillir quelque chose.
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 | boîte |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \bwat\ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #1,651 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “boîte” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for boîte is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \bwat\. Corpus data places it at rank #1,651 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 11 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for boîte, with forms such as "bboîte", "boite", and "botîe". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "bot", "bout", "boxe", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is boîte, spelled B-O-Î-T-E.
Definition
- 1Objet rigide et creux ayant la capacité de se fermer et qui a vocation à accueillir quelque chose.
- 2Boîte de conserve.
- 3Lieu de travail ; entreprise.
- 4Boîte de nuit ; discothèque ; cabaret.
- 5Espèce de petit mortier de fonte ou de fer, qu’on charge de poudre, qu’on bouche ensuite d’un tampon de bois et auquel on met le feu.
- 6Tout dispositif où entre et joue une pièce mobile, comme, par exemple, la douille qui emboite la mèche d’un vilebrequin ; la mortaise qui maintient le crochet de fer d’un établi, etc.
- 7Bouche.
- 8Très mauvaise note.
- 9Cercueil.
- 10Salle de police.
- 11Mesures de première et de deuxième fois (prima volta, seconda volta). Lorsqu’un passage est joué deux fois mais avec une fin différente, les mesures finales sont mises dans des « boîtes » intitulées « 1. » pour les mesures de première fois et « 2. » pour les mesures de deuxième fois.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: bboîte,boite,botîe,boîet,boîtte,bîote,obîte
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of boîte - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "boîte"?
What does "boîte" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "boîte"?
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Using “boîte”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is B-O-Î-T-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \bwat\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “bot” - see the side-by-side comparison. boîte vs bot
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French 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.