borevsboxesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#42,194
“bore” frequency rank
#41,683
“boxes” frequency rank
83877
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bore boxes
Definition Élément chimique de numéro atomique 5 et de symbole B, généralement classé parmi les métalloïdes, utilisé notamment dans le verre borosilicaté, les borates et certains alliages. Pluriel de boxe.

Where the eye mixes bore and boxes

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

4 ch
bore
5 ch
boxes

Look-alike desk: bore vs boxes

A purely visual mix-up. bore (\bɔʁ\) and boxes (\bɔks\) 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 83877, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bore is recorded at frequency rank #42,194, classified as anoun, pronounced \bɔʁ\. boxes is at rank #41,683, tagged as anoun, pronounced \bɔks\.

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 83877, this pair ranks #14,016 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of bore vs boxes

Shared letters: beo. Private to "bore": r. Private to "boxes": sx.

"bore" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "boxes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • borebbore · boer · borre · broe
  • boxesbboxes · boexs · boxess · boxse · boxxes · bxoes · obxes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "bore" for "boxes" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\bɔʁ\ versus \bɔks\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "bore" vs "boxes" - which ranks higher?
"boxes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #41,683 in our French list, against #42,194 for "bore". 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 "bore" and "boxes" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "bore" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "boxes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #14,016 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bore" and "boxes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bore vs bury". 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 #14,016 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