bordevsbordéesWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: borde is a noun, bordées is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#22,780
“borde” frequency rank
#33,148
“bordées” frequency rank
55928
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature borde bordées
Definition Métairie. Féminin pluriel de bordé.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set borde and bordées apart are highlighted. They share 5 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

5 ch
borde
7 ch
bordées

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: borde is \bɔʁd\ while bordées is \bɔʁ.de\. 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 adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55928, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

borde is recorded at frequency rank #22,780, classified as anoun, pronounced \bɔʁd\. bordées is at rank #33,148, tagged as anadj, 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 55928, this pair ranks #124,292 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of borde vs bordées

Shared letters: bdeor. Private to "borde": -. Private to "bordées": .

"borde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "bordées" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bordebborde · bodre · bordde · bored · borrde · brode · obrde

Frequency comparison

borde#22,780
bordées#33,148

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "borde" and "bordées" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "borde" is a noun and "bordées" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "borde" or "bordées"?
"borde" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,780 in our French list, against #33,148 for "bordées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering borde vs bordées

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Check the role first: if you need a noun, it's “borde”; for an adjective, it's “bordées”.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “borde” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list