Which to use
“bourrée” and “bourses” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #18,416
- “bourrée” frequency rank
- #7,936
- “bourses” frequency rank
- 26352
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | bourrée | bourses |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Sorte de fagot de menues branches, gros et court, lié au milieu avec une seule hart ^([1]) ^([2]). | Pluriel de bourse. |
Where the eye mixes bourrée and bourses
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses bourrée with bourses
A purely visual mix-up. bourrée (\bu.ʁe\) and bourses (\buʁs\) 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 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26352, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
bourrée is recorded at frequency rank #18,416, classified as anoun, pronounced \bu.ʁe\. bourses is at rank #7,936, tagged as anoun, pronounced \buʁs\.
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 26352, this pair ranks #335,547 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of bourrée vs bourses
Shared letters: beoru. Private to "bourrée": é. Private to "bourses": s.
"bourrée" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVV · "bourses" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- bourses ← bbourses · boruses · bouress · bourrses · boursess · boursses · bousres · buorses
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "bourrée" and "bourses" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary French text, does "bourrée" or "bourses" show up more?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "bourrée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "bourses" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #335,547 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "bourrée" and "bourses" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bourdes vs bourrée". 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 #335,547 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.