balance

/\ba.lɑ̃s\/ noun

Letters

7 characters

Frequency Rank

#3,183

in French word usage

Misspellings

10

tracked variants

Confusables

16

similar word pairs

balance is aFrenchnoun. It means: Instrument de mesure utilisé pour peser des éléments, pour déterminer leur masse. Pronounced \ba.lɑ̃s\. It ranks #3,183 in French word frequency. Often confused with blanc and blancs.

Key facts for balance
PropertyValue
Headwordbalance
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\ba.lɑ̃s\
Letters7
Frequency rank#3,183
Misspellings tracked10
Confusable pairs16
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of balance in French word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for balance is 7 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \ba.lɑ̃s\. Corpus data places it at rank #3,183 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 14 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 10 documented wrong-spelling variants for balance, with forms such as "ablance", "baalnce", and "balacne". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 16 confusable-pair relationships, "blanc", "blancs", "banane", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is balance, spelled B-A-L-A-N-C-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Instrument de mesure utilisé pour peser des éléments, pour déterminer leur masse.
  2. 2
    Appareil servant à indiquer le poids d'une personne. → voir pèse-personne
  3. 3
    Instrument de mesure utilisé pour déterminer des forces.
  4. 4
    Réglage précis.
  5. 5
    Filet rappelant la forme d’un plateau de balance pour pêcher les écrevisses, les crevettes.
  6. 6
    Dénonciateur, personne donnant des renseignements à la police. → voir cousin, donneuse, indic…
  7. 7
    Note non satisfaisante mais qui n’entraîne pas d’échec.
  8. 8
    Équilibre.
  9. 9
    Montant qui représente la différence entre les comptes débiteur et créditeur, entre deux soldes (import / export), etc.
  10. 10
    Action d’arrêter, à une certaine époque, les écritures d’une maison de commerce, pour qu’elle se rende compte de sa situation → voir bilan.
  11. 11
    Dispositif permettant d’ajuster les niveaux acoustiques de sortie des deux voies d’un ensemble stéréophonique.
  12. 12
    Meuble représentant l’instrument de mesure du même nom dans les armoiries. Sa représentation est généralement celle de la balance à plateaux tenue à la main.
  13. 13
    Attribut donné à certains êtres humains dans les armoiries (archange, femme aveugle…).
  14. 14
    Étape de la préparation d'un concert au cours de laquelle on vérifie la sonorisation et on ajuste les niveaux d'amplification.

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: ablance,baalnce,balacne,balancce,balanec,balannce,ballance,balnace,bbalance,blaance

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for balance

Misspelling Variants of "balance"

ablance7baalnce7balacne7balancce8balanec7balannce8ballance8balnace7
Misspelling Variants of "balance"

Frequency rank: #3,183 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "balance"?
"balance" is spelled B-A-L-A-N-C-E. The IPA pronunciation is \ba.lɑ̃s\.
What does "balance" mean?
As a noun, "balance" means: Instrument de mesure utilisé pour peser des éléments, pour déterminer leur masse.
What words are commonly confused with "balance"?
"balance" is commonly confused with "blanc", "blancs", "banane". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "balance"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "balance" is \ba.lɑ̃s\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "balance" come from?
"balance" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter B in our French index:

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.