boudevsbourdesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#33,580
“boude” frequency rank
#49,528
“bourdes” frequency rank
83108
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature boude bourdes
Definition Bouderie. Pluriel de bourde.

Where the eye mixes boude and bourdes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

5 ch
boude
7 ch
bourdes

Visual trap between boude and bourdes

A purely visual mix-up. boude (\bud\) and bourdes (\buʁd\) 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 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 83108, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

boude is recorded at frequency rank #33,580, classified as anoun, pronounced \bud\. bourdes is at rank #49,528, tagged as anoun, pronounced \buʁd\.

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 83108, this pair ranks #15,437 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of boude vs bourdes

Shared letters: bdeou. Private to "boude": -. Private to "bourdes": rs.

"boude" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "bourdes" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • boudebboude · bodue · boudde · boued · buode · obude
  • bourdesbbourdes · borudes · boudres · bourddes · bourdess · bourdse · boureds · bourrdes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "boude" for "bourdes" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\bud\ versus \buʁd\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "boude" or "bourdes"?
"boude" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,580 in our French list, against #49,528 for "bourdes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "boude" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bourdes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #15,437 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "boude" and "bourdes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bordés 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 #15,437 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