Which to use
“bougre” and “bure” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #32,311
- “bougre” frequency rank
- #29,261
- “bure” frequency rank
- 61572
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | bougre | bure |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Sodomite. | Étoffe grossière faite de laine rousse. |
Where the eye mixes bougre and bure
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. bougre runs 6 letters (CVVCCV) against bure's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses bougre with bure
A purely visual mix-up. bougre (\buɡʁ\) and bure (\byʁ\) 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 61572, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
bougre is recorded at frequency rank #32,311, classified as anoun, pronounced \buɡʁ\. bure is at rank #29,261, tagged as anoun, pronounced \byʁ\.
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 61572, this pair ranks #91,531 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of bougre vs bure
Shared letters: beru. Private to "bougre": go. Private to "bure": -.
"bougre" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV · "bure" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "bougre" and "bure" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "bougre" or "bure" show up more?
After this comparison
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "bougre" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "bure" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #91,531 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "bougre" and "bure" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bure 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 #91,531 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.