boléro

\bɔ.le.ʁo\

/\bɔ.le.ʁo\/ noun

The verdict

“boléro” is uncommon French (frequency #53,811 among 4,251 “B” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#53,811
frequency rank, French
4,251
“B” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Air de danse espagnol joué à la guitare sur un rythme à trois temps, qui accompagne un couple de danseurs jouant des castagnettes.

Corpus desk

Index FR-bolero · boléro · French

boléro · rank #53,811 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #53,811
  • LEN-LONG 6 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 4,251
  • PHOTO-FINISH blush

Nearest frequency peer: blush (-1 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Rangs de longue queue près de « boléro »

Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court

corpus weight

What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « boléro » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for boléro
PropertyValue
Headwordboléro
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\bɔ.le.ʁo\
Letters6
Frequency rank#53,811
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « boléro » en français

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).bolérotombe dans cette queue de rareté:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Voisins rares de la même bande: « blush » (#53,810), « bonobo » (#53,812), « bleuté » (#53,809). Parmi 4,251 lemmes en « B », « boléro » est au #53,811. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

boléro is uncommon French at frequency #53,811 among 4,251 “B” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \bɔ.le.ʁo\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.

The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for boléro, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable French rules. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.

This entry carries no recorded etymology, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is boléro, spelled B-O-L-É-R-O.

Definition

  1. 1
    Air de danse espagnol joué à la guitare sur un rythme à trois temps, qui accompagne un couple de danseurs jouant des castagnettes.
  2. 2
    Danse que cet air accompagne.
  3. 3
    Petite veste de femme d’origine espagnole.
  4. 4
    Petit chapeau rond espagnol.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how boléro appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Le costume des femmes est d’un éclat tout asiatique ; il se compose d'une culotte bouffante, serrée à la cheville, d’un boléro très ouvert qui laisse la poitrine libre dans la mince étoffe.
  2. Si l’on m’avait dit que la conversation que je commençai alors avec la Perruche au sujet d’un boléro qu’elle voulait s’acheter devait se terminer comme on va voir !

This word in other languages

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 "boléro"?
"boléro" is spelled B-O-L-É-R-O. The IPA pronunciation is \bɔ.le.ʁo\.
What does "boléro" mean?
As a noun, "boléro" means: Air de danse espagnol joué à la guitare sur un rythme à trois temps, qui accompagne un couple de danseurs jouant des castagnettes.
How do you pronounce "boléro"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "boléro" is \bɔ.le.ʁo\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "boléro" come from?
"boléro" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "boléro", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list