bobinevsboneWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#20,649
“bobine” frequency rank
#28,075
“bone” frequency rank
48724
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bobine bone
Definition Petit cylindre de bois qui est garni d’un rebord à ses deux extrémités et qui sert à filer au rouet, à dévider du fil, de la soie, de l’or, etc. Borne.

Letter map: bobine vs bone

Shared letters muted; letters that set bobine and bone apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

6 ch
bobine
4 ch
bone

Pair insight - bobine / bone

bobine and bone are indexed as a confusable French pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48724, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bobine is recorded at frequency rank #20,649, classified as anoun, pronounced \bɔ.bin\. bone is at rank #28,075, tagged as anoun.

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 48724, this pair ranks #176,535 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of bobine vs bone

Shared letters: beno. Private to "bobine": i. Private to "bone": -.

"bobine" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "bone" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bobinebbobine · bboine · bobbine · bobien · bobinne · bobnie · boibne · obbine
  • bonebbone · bnoe · boen · obne

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "bobine" for "bone" ever safe?
No. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary French text, does "bobine" or "bone" show up more?
"bobine" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,649 in our French list, against #28,075 for "bone". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "bobine" and "bone". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "bobine" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bone" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #176,535 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bobine" and "bone" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bold vs bone". 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 #176,535 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