Which to use
“barres” is a noun and “bordés” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #6,786
- “barres” frequency rank
- #48,950
- “bordés” frequency rank
- 55736
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | barres | bordés |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel de barre. | Masculin pluriel de bordé. |
Where the eye mixes barres and bordés
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. barres and bordés follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: barres vs bordés
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: barres is \baʁ\ while bordés is \bɔʁ.de\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55736, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
barres is recorded at frequency rank #6,786, classified as anoun, pronounced \baʁ\. bordés is at rank #48,950, tagged as anadj, pronounced \bɔʁ.de\.
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 55736, this pair ranks #125,534 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of barres vs bordés
Shared letters: brs. Private to "barres": ae. Private to "bordés": doé.
"barres" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "bordés" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- barres ← barers · bares · barress · barrse · bbarres · brares
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "barres" for "bordés" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "barres" or "bordés" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "barres" and "bordés" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "barres" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "bordés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #125,534 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "barres" and "bordés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bordés vs bourdes". 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 #125,534 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.