Which to use
“breach” and “breadth” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #5,764
- “breach” frequency rank
- #15,579
- “breadth” frequency rank
- 21343
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | breach | breadth |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A gap or opening made by breaking or battering, as in a wall, fortification or levee / embankment; the space between the parts of a solid body rent by violence. | The extent or measure of how broad or wide something is; width. |
Where the eye mixes breach and breadth
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: breach vs breadth
A purely visual mix-up. breach (/bɹiːtʃ/) and breadth (/bɹɛdθ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 21343, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
breach is recorded at frequency rank #5,764, classified as anoun, pronounced /bɹiːtʃ/. breadth is at rank #15,579, tagged as anoun, pronounced /bɹɛdθ/.
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 21343, this pair ranks #424,583 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of breach vs breadth
Shared letters: abehr. Private to "breach": c. Private to "breadth": dt.
"breach" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCC · "breadth" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "breach" and "breadth" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "breach" or "breadth"?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "breach" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "breadth" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #424,583 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "breach" and "breadth" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "breach vs broach". 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 #424,583 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.