bordéevsbordureTell them apart

Which to use

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

#18,136
“bordée” frequency rank
#8,206
“bordure” frequency rank
26342
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bordée bordure
Definition Ligne de canons rangés de chaque bord d’un ancien navire. Ce qui garnit, orne ou renforce le bord de quelque chose.

Where the eye mixes bordée and bordure

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. bordée runs 6 letters (CVCCVV) against bordure's 7 (CVCCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
bordée
7 ch
bordure

Look-alike desk: bordée vs bordure

A purely visual mix-up. bordée (\bɔʁ.de\) and bordure (\bɔʁ.dyʁ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26342, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bordée is recorded at frequency rank #18,136, classified as anoun, pronounced \bɔʁ.de\. bordure is at rank #8,206, tagged as anoun, pronounced \bɔʁ.dyʁ\.

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 26342, this pair ranks #335,603 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of bordée vs bordure

Shared letters: bdeor. Private to "bordée": é. Private to "bordure": u.

"bordée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "bordure" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bordure ← bbordure · bodrure · borddure · bordrue · borduer · bordurre · borrdure · borudre

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "bordée" for "bordure" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\bɔʁ.de\ versus \bɔʁ.dyʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "bordée" or "bordure" show up more?
"bordure" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,206 in our French list, against #18,136 for "bordée". 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 "bordée" and "bordure" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "bordée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bordure" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #335,603 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bordée" and "bordure" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bordée vs bourdes". 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 #335,603 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