NBC

\ɛn.be.se\

/\ɛn.be.se\/ adj

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

The verdict

“NBC” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #19,349) as an adjective. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#19,349
frequency rank, French
1,563
“N” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Qualifie les trois grands risques encourus avec les armes de destruction massive : le nucléaire, la biologie et la chimie.

Corpus desk

Index FR-nbc · NBC · French

NBC · rank #19,349 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #19,349
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-0 0 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 1,563
  • PHOTO-FINISH méritez

Nearest frequency peer: méritez (-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 « NBC »

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

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « NBC » 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).

NBC vs ne
0% similar
NBC vs ni
0% similar
NBC vs no
0% similar

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

Key facts for NBC
PropertyValue
HeadwordNBC
LanguageFrench
Part of speechAdjective
IPA\ɛn.be.se\
Letters3
Frequency rank#19,349
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « NBC »

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).NBCse 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 « méritez » (#19,348), « Neuchâtel » (#19,350), « Neuville » (#19,351). Parmi 1,563 lemmes en « N », « NBC » est au #19,349. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for NBC is neighbouring look-alikes ("ne", "ni", …), not just typos; it is anadjective pronounced \ɛn.be.se\. Frequency #19,349 among 1,563 “N” headwords. Gloss: "Qualifie les trois grands risques encourus avec les armes de destruction massive : le nucléaire, la biologie et la chimie.".

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for NBC, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "ne", "ni", "no", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.

This entry's etymology isn't recorded, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is NBC, spelled N-B-C.

Definition

  1. 1
    Qualifie les trois grands risques encourus avec les armes de destruction massive : le nucléaire, la biologie et la chimie.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Il comprend un masque et une combinaison NBC (Nucléaire Biologique et Chimique) doublée de charbon de bois, des bottes en caoutchouc, des gants, des produits décontaminants et des médicaments contre l’anthrax et l’agent neurotoxique VX.
  2. Elle veut limiter la prolifération des missiles et des armes NBC aux effets dévastateurs sur l'humanité.

This word in other languages

NBC(English)ABC(Deutsch)

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 "NBC"?
"NBC" is spelled N-B-C. The IPA pronunciation is \ɛn.be.se\.
What does "NBC" mean?
As an adjective, "NBC" means: Qualifie les trois grands risques encourus avec les armes de destruction massive : le nucléaire, la biologie et la chimie.
What words are commonly confused with "NBC"?
"NBC" is commonly confused with "ne", "ni", "no". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "NBC"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "NBC" is \ɛn.be.se\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "NBC" come from?
"NBC" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
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 "NBC", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

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

lai#19,335kWh#19,333rie#19,393sat#19,402

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list