Which to use
“breached” is a verb and “breaches” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #18,030
- “breached” frequency rank
- #18,257
- “breaches” frequency rank
- 36287
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | breached | breaches |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of breach | plural of breach |
Where the eye mixes breached and breaches
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. breached and breaches follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: breached vs breaches
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: breached is /bɹiːt͡ʃt/ while breaches is /ˈbɹiːt͡ʃɪz/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - d in “breached” becomes s in “breaches”, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 36287, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
breached is recorded at frequency rank #18,030, classified as averb, pronounced /bɹiːt͡ʃt/. breaches is at rank #18,257, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈbɹiːt͡ʃɪz/.
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 36287, this pair ranks #304,409 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of breached vs breaches
Shared letters: abcehr. Private to "breached": d. Private to "breaches": s.
"breached" · 8 letters · shape CCVVCCVC · "breaches" · 8 letters · shape CCVVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "breached" and "breaches" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "breached" or "breaches"?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "breached" and "breaches" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "breached" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "breaches" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #304,409 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "breached" and "breaches" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bleacher vs breaches". 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 #304,409 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.