Which to use
“bourdon” and “bourdons” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #19,766
- “bourdon” frequency rank
- #47,755
- “bourdons” frequency rank
- 67521
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | bourdon | bourdons |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Long bâton de pèlerin surmonté d’une gourde, ou d’un ornement en forme de pomme. | Pluriel de bourdon. |
Same sound, different letters: bourdon vs bourdons
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters.
Ear matches; page differs - bourdon and bourdons
This is the hard kind. bourdon and bourdons are pronounced identically (\buʁ.dɔ̃\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “bourdon” sits inside “bourdons”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67521, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
bourdon is recorded at frequency rank #19,766, classified as anoun, pronounced \buʁ.dɔ̃\. bourdons is at rank #47,755, tagged as anoun, pronounced \buʁ.dɔ̃\.
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 67521, this pair ranks #63,076 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of bourdon vs bourdons
Shared letters: bdnoru. Private to "bourdon": -. Private to "bourdons": s.
"bourdon" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC · "bourdons" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "bourdon" and "bourdons" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "bourdon" or "bourdons" show up more?
After this comparison
Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.
- Full dictionary entry for "bourdon" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "bourdons" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #63,076 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "bourdon" and "bourdons" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bourdes vs bourdons". 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 #63,076 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.