ballade

/\ba.lad\/ noun

Letters

7 characters

Frequency Rank

#13,973

in French word usage

Misspellings

7

tracked variants

Confusables

12

similar word pairs

ballade is aFrenchnoun. It means: Poème à forme fixe, composé de couplets faits sur les mêmes rimes avec refrain et d’un envoi. Pronounced \ba.lad\. Often confused with balle and blade.

Key facts for ballade
PropertyValue
Headwordballade
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\ba.lad\
Letters7
Frequency rank#13,973
Misspellings tracked7
Confusable pairs12
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

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

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for ballade is 7 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \ba.lad\. Corpus data places it at rank #13,973 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 7 documented wrong-spelling variants for ballade, with forms such as "abllade", "balalde", and "balladde". 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 12 confusable-pair relationships, "balle", "blade", "Barbade", 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 ballade, spelled B-A-L-L-A-D-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Poème à forme fixe, composé de couplets faits sur les mêmes rimes avec refrain et d’un envoi.
  2. 2
    Récit en vers, divisé en strophes avec ou sans refrain, reproduisant le plus souvent des traditions historiques ou légendaires.
  3. 3
    Nom donné à des compositions musicales et à des chansons, bien qu’elles ne retiennent que rarement la forme fixe d’origine.
  4. 4
    Morceau de jazz, généralement de 32 mesures, joué sur tempo lent, voire très lent.

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: abllade,balalde,balladde,ballaed,balldae,bballade,blalade

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for ballade

Misspelling Variants of "ballade"

abllade7balalde7balladde8ballaed7balldae7bballade8blalade7
Misspelling Variants of "ballade"

Frequency rank: #13,973 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "ballade"?
"ballade" is spelled B-A-L-L-A-D-E. The IPA pronunciation is \ba.lad\.
What does "ballade" mean?
As a noun, "ballade" means: Poème à forme fixe, composé de couplets faits sur les mêmes rimes avec refrain et d’un envoi.
What words are commonly confused with "ballade"?
"ballade" is commonly confused with "balle", "blade", "Barbade". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "ballade"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "ballade" is \ba.lad\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "ballade" come from?
"ballade" 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.