bureau
\by.ʁo\
The verdict
“bureau” is in the everyday core of French, ranked #750 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #750
- frequency rank, French
- 6
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 15
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Meuble à tiroirs et à tablettes où l’on enferme des papiers et sur lequel on écrit.
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 | bureau |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \by.ʁo\ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #750 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 15 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “bureau” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for bureau is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \by.ʁo\. Corpus data places it at rank #750 in overall French word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. Wiktionary records 12 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 bureau, with forms such as "bbureau", "brueau", and "buerau". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 15 confusable-pair relationships, "burqa", "Burka", "bureaux", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct French form is bureau, spelled B-U-R-E-A-U.
Definition
- 1Meuble à tiroirs et à tablettes où l’on enferme des papiers et sur lequel on écrit.
- 2Table destinée au travail.
- 3Tout endroit où travaillent habituellement des employés, des commis, des gens d’affaires, etc.
- 4Établissement ou succursale où des employés effectuent un travail plutôt intellectuel.
- 5Étoffe de bure.
- 6Lieu où se distribuent les billets d’entrée pour un spectacle ou pour tout autre lieu dans lequel on n’est admis qu’en payant. On dit aujourd'hui « guichet ».
- 7L'ensemble des employés eux-mêmes qui travaillent dans un bureau.
- 8Établissements qui dépendent, la plupart, de l’administration publique, qui sont destinés à quelque service public.
- 9Certain nombre de personnes tirées d’une assemblée pour s’occuper spécialement d’une ou de plusieurs affaires dont elles doivent ensuite rendre compte à l’assemblée générale.
- 10Réunion du président, des vice-présidents, des secrétaires et aussi, dans certains cas, du trésorier, en parlant des assemblées législatives ou électorales, d’une académie, du comité, d’une société, d’un syndicat, d’une association, etc.
- 11Surface de travail des environnements graphiques, permettant d’accéder aux différentes ressources de l'appareil (logiciels, fichiers, périphériques...), et sur laquelle s’ouvrent les fenêtres des applications.
- 12Délégation décentralisée d’une agence de presse, d’un journal ou d’un organisme de radiodiffusion ou de télévision.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: bbureau,brueau,buerau,buraeu,bureua,burreau,ubreau
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of bureau - 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.
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 "bureau"?
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Using “bureau”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is B-U-R-E-A-U - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \by.ʁo\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “burqa” - see the side-by-side comparison. bureau vs burqa
- 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.