balance
\ba.lɑ̃s\
The verdict
“balance” is a regularly-used French word, ranked #3,183 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #3,183
- frequency rank, French
- 7
- letters
- 10
- tracked misspellings
- 16
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Instrument de mesure utilisé pour peser des éléments, pour déterminer leur masse.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | balance |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ba.lɑ̃s\ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #3,183 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 16 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “balance” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for balance is 7 letters long, classified as a noun, 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 generated misspelling index lists 10 likely wrong-spelling variants for balance, with forms such as "ablance", "baalnce", and "balacne". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. 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.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is balance, spelled B-A-L-A-N-C-E.
Definition
- 1Instrument de mesure utilisé pour peser des éléments, pour déterminer leur masse.
- 2Appareil servant à indiquer le poids d'une personne. → voir pèse-personne
- 3Instrument de mesure utilisé pour déterminer des forces.
- 4Réglage précis.
- 5Filet rappelant la forme d’un plateau de balance pour pêcher les écrevisses, les crevettes.
- 6Dénonciateur, personne donnant des renseignements à la police. → voir cousin, donneuse, indic…
- 7Note non satisfaisante mais qui n’entraîne pas d’échec.
- 8Équilibre.
- 9Montant qui représente la différence entre les comptes débiteur et créditeur, entre deux soldes (import / export), etc.
- 10Action d’arrêter, à une certaine époque, les écritures d’une maison de commerce, pour qu’elle se rende compte de sa situation → voir bilan.
- 11Dispositif permettant d’ajuster les niveaux acoustiques de sortie des deux voies d’un ensemble stéréophonique.
- 12Meuble 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.
- 13Attribut donné à certains êtres humains dans les armoiries (archange, femme aveugle…).
- 14Étape 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
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of balance - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “balance”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is B-A-L-A-N-C-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \ba.lɑ̃s\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “blanc” - see the side-by-side comparison. balance vs blanc
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.