bombardéevsbombarderWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: bombardée is a adjective, bombarder is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“bombardée” is an adjective and “bombarder” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#41,148
“bombardée” frequency rank
#21,546
“bombarder” frequency rank
62694
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bombardée bombarder
Definition Féminin singulier de bombardé. Attaquer une ville, une place, une position militaire avec de l’artillerie terrestre, maritime ou, larguer des bombes avec un aéronef.

Same sound, different letters: bombardée vs bombarder

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. bombardée (CVCCVCCVV) and bombarder (CVCCVCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

9 ch
bombardée
9 ch
bombarder

Same sound, different spelling - bombardée / bombarder

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: bombardée and bombarder carry the same recorded pronunciation, \bɔ̃.baʁ.de\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62694, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bombardée is recorded at frequency rank #41,148, classified as anadj, pronounced \bɔ̃.baʁ.de\. bombarder is at rank #21,546, tagged as averb, pronounced \bɔ̃.baʁ.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 62694, this pair ranks #85,816 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of bombardée vs bombarder

Shared letters: abdemor. Private to "bombardée": é. Private to "bombarder": -.

"bombardée" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCCVV  ·  "bombarder" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bombarder ← bbombarder · bmobarder · bobmarder · bomabrder · bombadrer · bombardder · bombarderr · bombardre

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "bombardée" for "bombarder" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "bombardée" is an adjective and "bombarder" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "bombardée" or "bombarder"?
"bombarder" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,546 in our French list, against #41,148 for "bombardée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've separated the homophone pair "bombardée" / "bombarder". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "bombardée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bombarder" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #85,816 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bombardée" and "bombarder" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bombardée vs bombardés". 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 #85,816 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