bondsvsbonneWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#27,343
“bonds” frequency rank
#167
“bonne” frequency rank
27510
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bonds bonne
Definition Pluriel de bond. Servante dans une maison bourgeoise, dans un hôtel, etc., fille chargée de soigner un enfant.

Where the eye mixes bonds and bonne

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

5 ch
bonds
5 ch
bonne

Why the eye confuses bonds with bonne

A purely visual mix-up. bonds (\bɔ̃\) and bonne (\bɔn\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27510, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bonds is recorded at frequency rank #27,343, classified as anoun, pronounced \bɔ̃\. bonne is at rank #167, tagged as anoun, pronounced \bɔn\.

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 27510, this pair ranks #328,511 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of bonds vs bonne

Shared letters: bno. Private to "bonds": ds. Private to "bonne": e.

"bonds" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC  ·  "bonne" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bondsbbonds · bnods · bodns · bondds · bondss · bonnds · bonsd · obnds
  • bonnebbonne · bnone · bonen · obnne

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "bonds" and "bonne" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\bɔ̃\ versus \bɔn\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "bonds" or "bonne" show up more?
"bonne" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #167 in our French list, against #27,343 for "bonds". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "bonds" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bonne" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #328,511 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bonds" and "bonne" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bonds vs bordés". 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 #328,511 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