breastsvsbreathsConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#7,774
“breasts” frequency rank
#19,772
“breaths” frequency rank
27546
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature breasts breaths
Definition plural of breast plural of breath

Where the eye mixes breasts and breaths

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. breasts and breaths follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVVCCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
breasts
7 ch
breaths

Visual trap between breasts and breaths

A purely visual mix-up. breasts (/bɹɛsts/) and breaths (/bɹɛθs/) 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 27546, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

breasts is recorded at frequency rank #7,774, classified as anoun, pronounced /bɹɛsts/. breaths is at rank #19,772, tagged as anoun, pronounced /bɹɛθs/.

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 27546, this pair ranks #378,064 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of breasts vs breaths

Shared letters: aberst. Private to "breasts": -. Private to "breaths": h.

"breasts" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCCC  ·  "breaths" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • breasts ← bbreasts · berasts · braests · breassts · breastss · breastts · breatss · bresats
  • breaths ← bbreaths · beraths · braeths · breahts · breathhs · breathss · breatsh · breatths

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "breasts" and "breaths" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/bɹɛsts/ versus /bɹɛθs/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "breasts" or "breaths"?
"breasts" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,774 in our English list, against #19,772 for "breaths". 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 "breasts" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "breaths" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #378,064 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "breasts" and "breaths" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bests vs breasts". 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 #378,064 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