bievsboireTell them apart

Quick tell: bie is a noun, boire is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“bie” is a noun and “boire” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#46,026
“bie” frequency rank
#1,984
“boire” frequency rank
48010
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bie boire
Definition Bisexuelle, biromantique. Mettre un liquide dans sa bouche et l’avaler.

Where the eye mixes bie and boire

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

3 ch
bie
5 ch
boire

Visual trap between bie and boire

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: bie is \bi\ while boire is \bwaʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48010, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bie is recorded at frequency rank #46,026, classified as anoun, pronounced \bi\. boire is at rank #1,984, tagged as averb, pronounced \bwaʁ\.

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 48010, this pair ranks #182,377 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of bie vs boire

Shared letters: bei. Private to "bie": -. Private to "boire": or.

"bie" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "boire" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • boirebboire · biore · boier · boirre · borie · obire

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "bie" and "boire" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "bie" is a noun and "boire" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "bie" or "boire" show up more?
"boire" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,984 in our French list, against #46,026 for "bie". 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 "bie" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "boire" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #182,377 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bie" and "boire" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bie vs Blier". 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 #182,377 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