bornvsbriWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: born is a adjective, bri is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#24,882
“born” frequency rank
#31,860
“bri” frequency rank
56742
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature born bri
Definition Né. Variante de bry.

Where the eye mixes born and bri

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
born
3 ch
bri

Why the eye confuses born with bri

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: born is \ˈbɔɹn\ while bri is \bʁi\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56742, 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\. bri is at rank #31,860, tagged as anoun, pronounced \bʁi\.

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 56742, this pair ranks #119,195 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of born vs bri

Shared letters: br. Private to "born": no. Private to "bri": i.

"born" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "bri" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bornbborn · bonr · bornn · borrn · obrn

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "born" for "bri" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "born" is an adjective and "bri" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "born" vs "bri" - which ranks higher?
"born" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,882 in our French list, against #31,860 for "bri". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "born" and "bri" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "born" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bri" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #119,195 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "born" and "bri" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bri 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 #119,195 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