banevsbontéConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#47,740
“bane” frequency rank
#9,612
“bonté” frequency rank
57352
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bane bonté
Definition Hotte pour les vendanges. Qualité de ce qui est bon.

Where the eye mixes bane and bonté

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. bane runs 4 letters (CVCV) against bonté's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
bane
5 ch
bonté

Visual trap between bane and bonté

A purely visual mix-up. bane (\ban\) and bonté (\bɔ̃.te\) 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 57352, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bane is recorded at frequency rank #47,740, classified as anoun, pronounced \ban\. bonté is at rank #9,612, tagged as anoun, pronounced \bɔ̃.te\.

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 57352, this pair ranks #115,559 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of bane vs bonté

Shared letters: bn. Private to "bane": ae. Private to "bonté": oté.

"bane" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "bonté" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bane ← abne · banne · bbane · bnae

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "bane" for "bonté" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ban\ versus \bɔ̃.te\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "bane" vs "bonté" - which ranks higher?
"bonté" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,612 in our French list, against #47,740 for "bane". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "bane" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bonté" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #115,559 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bane" and "bonté" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bafa vs bane". 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 #115,559 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