breadthvsbreastTell them apart

Which to use

“breadth” and “breast” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#15,579
“breadth” frequency rank
#3,927
“breast” frequency rank
19506
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature breadth breast
Definition The extent or measure of how broad or wide something is; width. Either of the two organs on the front of a female human's chest, which contain the mammary glands; also the analogous organs in males.

Where the eye mixes breadth and breast

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

7 ch
breadth
6 ch
breast

Visual trap between breadth and breast

A purely visual mix-up. breadth (/bɹɛdθ/) and breast (/bɹɛst/) 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 19506, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

breadth is recorded at frequency rank #15,579, classified as anoun, pronounced /bɹɛdθ/. breast is at rank #3,927, tagged as anoun, pronounced /bɹɛst/.

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 19506, this pair ranks #437,687 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of breadth vs breast

Shared letters: abert. Private to "breadth": dh. Private to "breast": s.

"breadth" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCCC  ·  "breast" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • breadthbbreadth · beradth · braedth · breaddth · breadht · breadthh · breadtth · breatdh
  • breastbbreast · berast · braest · breasst · breastt · breats · bresat · brreast

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "breadth" and "breast" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/bɹɛdθ/ versus /bɹɛst/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "breadth" vs "breast" - which ranks higher?
"breast" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,927 in our English list, against #15,579 for "breadth". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "breadth" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "breast" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #437,687 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "breadth" and "breast" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "beaut vs breast". 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 #437,687 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list