Which to use
“bulbe” and “butée” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #28,865
- “bulbe” frequency rank
- #46,043
- “butée” frequency rank
- 74908
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | bulbe | butée |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Organe végétal souterrain formé par un bourgeon entouré de feuilles charnues, permettant à la plante de reformer chaque année ses parties aériennes. | Dispositif servant à délimiter la course d’une pièce mobile. |
Where the eye mixes bulbe and butée
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses bulbe with butée
A purely visual mix-up. bulbe (\bylb\) and butée (\by.te\) 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 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 74908, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
bulbe is recorded at frequency rank #28,865, classified as anoun, pronounced \bylb\. butée is at rank #46,043, tagged as anoun, pronounced \by.te\.
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 74908, this pair ranks #35,671 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of bulbe vs butée
Shared letters: beu. Private to "bulbe": l. Private to "butée": té.
"bulbe" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "butée" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- bulbe ← bbulbe · blube · buble · bulbbe · buleb · bullbe · ublbe
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "bulbe" and "butée" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "bulbe" or "butée"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "bulbe" and "butée" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "bulbe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "butée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #35,671 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "bulbe" and "butée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "buses vs butée". 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 #35,671 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.