bullevsbullesConfusable pair

Which to use

“bulle” and “bulles” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#5,529
“bulle” frequency rank
#9,791
“bulles” frequency rank
15320
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bulle bulles
Definition Petite quantité d’air qui s’élève à la surface des liquides, en particulier lors de l’ébullition ou de la fermentation. Pluriel de bulle.

Same sound, different letters: bulle vs bulles

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters.

5 ch
bulle
6 ch
bulles

Ear matches; page differs - bulle and bulles

This is the hard kind. bulle and bulles are pronounced identically (\byl\) 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) - “bulle” sits inside “bulles”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 15320, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bulle is recorded at frequency rank #5,529, classified as anoun, pronounced \byl\. bulles is at rank #9,791, tagged as anoun, pronounced \byl\.

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 15320, this pair ranks #392,864 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of bulle vs bulles

Shared letters: belu. Private to "bulle": -. Private to "bulles": s.

"bulle" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "bulles" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bullebbulle · blule · bulel · ublle
  • bullesbbulles · blules · bulels · bulless · bullse · ublles

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "bulle" and "bulles" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\byl\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "bulle" vs "bulles" - which ranks higher?
"bulle" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,529 in our French list, against #9,791 for "bulles". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've separated the homophone pair "bulle" / "bulles". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "bulle" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bulles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #392,864 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bulle" and "bulles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "buffles vs bulles". 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 #392,864 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list