bum
\bɔm\
The verdict
“bum” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #42,205) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #42,205
- frequency rank, French
- 4,251
- “B” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Personne antisociale aux manières insolentes, qui a un penchant pour l’intimidation et la délinquance.
Corpus desk
Index FR-bum · bum · French
bum · rank #42,205 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #42,205
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,251
- PHOTO-FINISH Buick
Nearest frequency peer: Buick (-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 « bum »
Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous
- brodée
brodée
57,799 corpus weight
- Buick
Buick
57,797 corpus weight
- bum
bum
57,796 corpus weight
- Burka
Burka
57,795 corpus weight
- Burnett
Burnett
57,794 corpus weight
- bâillon
bâillon
57,793 corpus weight
What this shows Les barres placent « bum » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.
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 | bum |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \bɔm\ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #42,205 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Rang de corpus près des confusables de « bum »
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for bum is neighbouring look-alikes ("by", "BV", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \bɔm\. Frequency #42,205 among 4,251 “B” headwords. Gloss: "Personne antisociale aux manières insolentes, qui a un penchant pour l’intimidation et la délinquance.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for bum, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "by", "BV", "BX", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct French form is bum, spelled B-U-M.
Definition
- 1Personne antisociale aux manières insolentes, qui a un penchant pour l’intimidation et la délinquance.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how bum appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Belle et Bum, émission de variétés de Télé-Québec.
A priori, on n’y reconnaît guère la griffe de Dalpé : pas de bums, pas de milieu tough gonflé à la testostérone, où le crime est un mode de vie.
Synonyms
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
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "bum", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).