bernevsburnesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#8,813
“berne” frequency rank
#35,838
“burnes” frequency rank
44651
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature berne burnes
Definition Couverture de laine. Pluriel de burne.

Where the eye mixes berne and burnes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
berne
6 ch
burnes

Look-alike desk: berne vs burnes

A purely visual mix-up. berne (\bɛʁn\) and burnes (\byʁn\) 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 44651, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

berne is recorded at frequency rank #8,813, classified as anoun, pronounced \bɛʁn\. burnes is at rank #35,838, tagged as anoun, pronounced \byʁn\.

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 44651, this pair ranks #208,840 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of berne vs burnes

Shared letters: benr. Private to "berne": -. Private to "burnes": su.

"berne" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "burnes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bernebberne · benre · beren · bernne · berrne · brene · ebrne
  • burnesbburnes · bunres · burens · burness · burnnes · burnse · burrnes · ubrnes

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "berne" and "burnes" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\bɛʁn\ versus \byʁn\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "berne" vs "burnes" - which ranks higher?
"berne" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,813 in our French list, against #35,838 for "burnes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "berne" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "burnes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #208,840 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "berne" and "burnes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bourdes vs burnes". 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 #208,840 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