Which to use
“bourne” and “burnes” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #31,857
- “bourne” frequency rank
- #35,838
- “burnes” frequency rank
- 67695
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | bourne | burnes |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | , Nasse, casier en bois pour piéger les écrevisses, les homards, les crustacés en général. | Pluriel de burne. |
Where the eye mixes bourne and burnes
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between bourne and burnes
A purely visual mix-up. bourne (\buʁn\) and burnes (\byʁn\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 5 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67695, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
bourne is recorded at frequency rank #31,857, classified as anoun, pronounced \buʁn\. burnes is at rank #35,838, tagged as anoun, pronounced \byʁn\.
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 67695, this pair ranks #62,282 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of bourne vs burnes
Shared letters: benru. Private to "bourne": o. Private to "burnes": s.
"bourne" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV · "burnes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "bourne" for "burnes" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "bourne" or "burnes" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "bourne" and "burnes" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "bourne" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "burnes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #62,282 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "bourne" and "burnes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bourdes vs burnes". 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 #62,282 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.