badevsBdeWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“bade” and “Bde” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#25,898
“bade” frequency rank
#43,803
“Bde” frequency rank
69701
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bade Bde
Definition Ouverture du compas servant à mesurer l’écart existant entre deux pièces qui devraient être jointives Abréviation de brigade.

Where the eye mixes bade and Bde

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
bade
3 ch
Bde

Why the eye confuses bade with Bde

A purely visual mix-up. bade (\bad\) and Bde (\bʁi.ɡad\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69701, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bade is recorded at frequency rank #25,898, classified as anoun, pronounced \bad\. Bde is at rank #43,803, tagged as anoun, pronounced \bʁi.ɡad\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 69701, this pair ranks #54,159 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of bade vs Bde

Shared letters: bde. Private to "bade": a. Private to "Bde": -.

"bade" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "Bde" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • badeabde · badde · baed · bbade · bdae

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "bade" and "Bde" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\bad\ versus \bʁi.ɡad\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "bade" or "Bde" show up more?
"bade" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,898 in our French list, against #43,803 for "Bde". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "bade" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Bde" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #54,159 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bade" and "Bde" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Bde vs ber". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #54,159 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list