bagnevsBaseWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#28,066
“bagne” frequency rank
#409
“Base” frequency rank
28475
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bagne Base
Definition Lieu de travaux forcés ; lieu où l’on tenait les forçats à la chaîne, où l’on renfermait les forçats après le travail. Cousine (fille d’un oncle ou d’une tante).

Where the eye mixes bagne and Base

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

5 ch
bagne
4 ch
Base

Look-alike desk: bagne vs Base

A purely visual mix-up. bagne (\baɲ\) and Base (\ˈbaː.zə\) 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 28475, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bagne is recorded at frequency rank #28,066, classified as anoun, pronounced \baɲ\. Base is at rank #409, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈbaː.zə\.

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 28475, this pair ranks #322,538 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of bagne vs Base

Shared letters: abe. Private to "bagne": gn. Private to "Base": s.

"bagne" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "Base" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bagneabgne · bagen · baggne · bagnne · bange · bbagne · bgane
  • Baseabse · baes · bbase · bsae

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "bagne" and "Base" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\baɲ\ versus \ˈbaː.zə\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "bagne" vs "Base" - which ranks higher?
"Base" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #409 in our French list, against #28,066 for "bagne". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "bagne" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Base" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #322,538 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bagne" and "Base" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bagne vs Byrne". 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 #322,538 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