bon

\bɔ̃\

/\bɔ̃\/ adj

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“bon” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #108) as an adjective. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#108
frequency rank, French
4,251
“B” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Qui a des qualités conformes à ce que l’on attendait.

Corpus desk

Index FR-bon · bon · French

bon · rank #108 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-CORE #108
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-1 1 vowel
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 4,251
  • PHOTO-FINISH voir

Nearest frequency peer: voir (-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.

Voisins de fréquence du confusable « bon »

Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « bon » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

bon vs by
33% similar
bon vs bu
33% similar
bon vs Br
0% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for bon
PropertyValue
Headwordbon
LanguageFrench
Part of speechAdjective
IPA\bɔ̃\
Letters3
Frequency rank#108
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « bon »

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.bonse place ici:

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

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « voir » (#107), « contre » (#109), « toujours » (#106). Parmi 4,251 lemmes en « B », « bon » est au #108. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for bon is neighbouring look-alikes ("by", "bu", …), not just typos; it is anadjective pronounced \bɔ̃\. Frequency #108 among 4,251 “B” headwords. 11 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

No misspelling variants are generated for bon in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "by", "bu", "Br", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, 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 bon, spelled B-O-N.

Definition

  1. 1
    Qui a des qualités conformes à ce que l’on attendait.
  2. 2
    Qui est avantageux ; favorable ; utile ; convenable.
  3. 3
    Agréable pour pratiquer une activité.
  4. 4
    Généreux, qui fait le bien.
  5. 5
    Conforme aux normes, à la raison, à la justice, à la morale, au devoir, à l’honnêteté.
  6. 6
    D’un goût agréable, gouteux.
  7. 7
    D’une certaine intensité ; d'une certaine quantité.
  8. 8
    Attirant physiquement. Surtout au féminin.
  9. 9
    Je te souhaite un bon …
  10. 10
    Être doué, talentueux.
  11. 11
    Qui va bien.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. C’est un bon outil que tu utilises.
  2. Quelle bonne idée !

Synonyms

altruisteclémentgénéreuxmiséricordieuxdélicieux

Antonyms

nulmauvaisinbon

This word in other languages

good(English)bueno(Español)gut(Deutsch)bom(Português)

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 "bon"?
"bon" is spelled B-O-N. The IPA pronunciation is \bɔ̃\.
What does "bon" mean?
As an adjective, "bon" means: Qui a des qualités conformes à ce que l’on attendait.
What words are commonly confused with "bon"?
"bon" is commonly confused with "by", "bu", "Br". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "bon"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "bon" is \bɔ̃\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "bon" come from?
"bon" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
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 "bon", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

vie#117toi#120peu#95ans#90

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list