boue

\bu\

/\bu\/ noun

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

The verdict

“boue” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #7,935) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#7,935
frequency rank, French
4,251
“B” headwords
4
tracked misspellings
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Fange des rues et des chemins, formée d'un mélange plus ou moins consistant de terre, sable, matière organique et d'eau.

Corpus desk

Index FR-boue · boue · French

boue · rank #7,935 · 4 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-COMMON #7,935
  • LEN-MID 4 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-LOW 4 variants
  • BOOK-MID 4,251
  • PHOTO-FINISH Australien

Nearest frequency peer: Australien (-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 « boue »

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

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « boue » 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).

boue vs bu
50% similar
boue vs but
50% similar
boue vs bus
50% similar

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

Key facts for boue
PropertyValue
Headwordboue
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\bu\
Letters4
Frequency rank#7,935
Misspellings tracked4
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « boue »

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

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

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « Australien » (#7,934), « bourses » (#7,936), « auberge » (#7,933). Parmi 4,251 lemmes en « B », « boue » est au #7,935. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for boue is neighbouring look-alikes ("bu", "but", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \bu\. Frequency #7,935 among 4,251 “B” headwords. 5 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

Our generated misspelling index lists 4 likely wrong-spelling variants for boue, with forms such as "bboue", "boeu", and "buoe". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "bu", "but", "bus", 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 its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is boue, spelled B-O-U-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Fange des rues et des chemins, formée d'un mélange plus ou moins consistant de terre, sable, matière organique et d'eau.
  2. 2
    Mélange, fluide ou visqueux, d'eau et de minéraux.
  3. 3
    Dépôt d’encre épaisse qui se forme au fond de l’encrier.
  4. 4
    Sorte de limon qui se trouve près de certaines eaux minérales et qui, imprégné des mêmes sels, participe aux mêmes propriétés.
  5. 5
    Chose abjecte, abjection.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. L'hiver était rude. Sur les routes que le court dégel de midi amollissait vaguement, la boue se ridait, se hérissait en lilliputiennes murailles et les sillons durcis qui bordaient les ornières ne s'affaissaient point.
  2. Il m’est dit à chaque instant que l’un des grands soucis des autorités départementales, c'est l’entretien des routes, souvent emportées par des torrents, par les coulées de boue, par les éboulements, par des chutes de blocs.

Synonyms

bouerbebouettefange

This word in other languages

mud(English)barro(Español)Schlamm(Deutsch)lama(Português)

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • bboue
  • boeu
  • buoe
  • obue

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of boue - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.

bboue1boeu2buoe2obue2
Edit distance from "boue"

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 "boue"?
"boue" is spelled B-O-U-E. The IPA pronunciation is \bu\.
What does "boue" mean?
As a noun, "boue" means: Fange des rues et des chemins, formée d'un mélange plus ou moins consistant de terre, sable, matière organique et d'eau.
What words are commonly confused with "boue"?
"boue" is commonly confused with "bu", "but", "bus". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "boue"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "boue" is \bu\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "boue" come from?
"boue" 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 "boue", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

call#7,939ciné#7,941come#7,944fume#7,965

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list