ballade
\ba.lad\
The verdict
“ballade” is a moderately-common French word, ranked #13,973 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #13,973
- frequency rank, French
- 7
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 12
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Poème à forme fixe, composé de couplets faits sur les mêmes rimes avec refrain et d’un envoi.
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 | ballade |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ba.lad\ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #13,973 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 12 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “ballade” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for ballade is 7 letters long, classified as a noun, 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 generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for ballade, with forms such as "abllade", "balalde", and "balladde". 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 12 confusable-pair relationships, "balle", "blade", "Barbade", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is ballade, spelled B-A-L-L-A-D-E.
Definition
- 1Poème à forme fixe, composé de couplets faits sur les mêmes rimes avec refrain et d’un envoi.
- 2Récit en vers, divisé en strophes avec ou sans refrain, reproduisant le plus souvent des traditions historiques ou légendaires.
- 3Nom donné à des compositions musicales et à des chansons, bien qu’elles ne retiennent que rarement la forme fixe d’origine.
- 4Morceau 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
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of ballade - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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
How do you spell "ballade"?
What does "ballade" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "ballade"?
How do you pronounce "ballade"?
What language does "ballade" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “ballade”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is B-A-L-L-A-D-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \ba.lad\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “balle” - see the side-by-side comparison. ballade vs balle
- 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.