bornvsbornéeWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#24,882
“born” frequency rank
#37,696
“bornée” frequency rank
62578
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature born bornée
Definition Né. Féminin singulier de borné.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set born and bornée apart are highlighted. They share 4 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

4 ch
born
6 ch
bornée

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. born (\ˈbɔɹn\) and bornée (\bɔʁ.ne\) 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 2 extra letter(s) - “born” sits inside “bornée”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62578, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

born is recorded at frequency rank #24,882, classified as anadj, pronounced \ˈbɔɹn\. bornée is at rank #37,696, tagged as anadj, pronounced \bɔʁ.ne\.

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 62578, this pair ranks #86,378 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of born vs bornée

Shared letters: bnor. Private to "born": -. Private to "bornée": .

"born" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "bornée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bornbborn · bonr · bornn · borrn · obrn

Frequency comparison

born#24,882
bornée#37,696

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "born" and "bornée" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ˈbɔɹn\ versus \bɔʁ.ne\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "born" or "bornée"?
"born" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,882 in our French list, against #37,696 for "bornée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering born vs bornée

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Read both glosses above and match the meaning you intend, only context separates this pair.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “born” 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