passer les bornes
\pa.se lɛ bɔʁn\
The verdict
“passer les bornes” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 17
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Aller au-delà des limites permises.
Corpus desk
Index FR-passer-les-bornes · passer les bornes · French
passer les bornes · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 17 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "P" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | passer les bornes |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \pa.se lɛ bɔʁn\ |
| Letters | 17 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « passer les bornes » en français
Rare enough to double-check
passer les bornes is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as averb, transcribed \pa.se lɛ bɔʁn\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Aller au-delà des limites permises.".
passer les bornes has no tracked misspelling variants, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
No documented word history exists for this headword, 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 passer les bornes, spelled P-A-S-S-E-R- -L-E-S- -B-O-R-N-E-S.
Definition
- 1Aller au-delà des limites permises.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how passer les bornes appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Si le chanoine avait du penchant pour la littérature égrillarde, et si Catulle et Martial ne lui suffisaient pas, Piron sans doute, et La Pucelle dans quelque belle reliure portant au dos un titre sérieux, mais probablement pas Candide, qui décidément passe les bornes.
– Qu’il mène notre affaire avec fermeté, c’est ce qu’on lui demande, mais qu’il nous donne en spectacle, qu’il menace l’ouverture du magasin, non ! Cette fois, il a passé les bornes !
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.