bondéevsbordéeWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: bondée is a adjective, bordée is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“bondée” is an adjective and “bordée” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#39,674
“bondée” frequency rank
#18,136
“bordée” frequency rank
57810
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bondée bordée
Definition Féminin singulier de bondé. Ligne de canons rangés de chaque bord d’un ancien navire.

Where the eye mixes bondée and bordée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. bondée and bordée follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
bondée
6 ch
bordée

Visual trap between bondée and bordée

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: bondée is \bɔ̃.de\ while bordée is \bɔʁ.de\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - n in “bondée” becomes r in “bordée”, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57810, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bondée is recorded at frequency rank #39,674, classified as anadj, pronounced \bɔ̃.de\. bordée is at rank #18,136, tagged as anoun, 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 57810, this pair ranks #112,827 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of bondée vs bordée

Shared letters: bdeoé. Private to "bondée": n. Private to "bordée": r.

"bondée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "bordée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "bondée" and "bordée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "bondée" is an adjective and "bordée" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "bondée" vs "bordée" - which ranks higher?
"bordée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,136 in our French list, against #39,674 for "bondée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "bondée" and "bordée" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "bondée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bordée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #112,827 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bondée" and "bordée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bondée vs bordés". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #112,827 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