balsa
\bal.za\
The verdict
“balsa” is uncommon French (frequency #92,458 among 4,251 “B” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #92,458
- frequency rank, French
- 4,251
- “B” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Nom vernaculaire de Ochroma pyramidale, arbre de la famille des Malvacées (Malvaceae). originaire des forêts équatoriales du Yucatan, d’Amérique centrale et d’Amérique du Sud, pouvant atteindre 30 ...
Corpus desk
Index FR-balsa · balsa · French
balsa · rank #92,458 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #92,458
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,251
- PHOTO-FINISH banalisés
Nearest frequency peer: banalisés (+2 rank slots)
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Rangs de longue queue près de « balsa »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- bahuts
bahuts
7,547 corpus weight
- baia
baia
7,546 corpus weight
- balsa
balsa
7,543 corpus weight
- banalisés
banalisés
7,541 corpus weight
- baptisant
baptisant
7,540 corpus weight
- bateleur
bateleur
7,539 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « balsa » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | balsa |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \bal.za\ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #92,458 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « balsa » en français
Rare enough to double-check
balsa is uncommon French at frequency #92,458 among 4,251 “B” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \bal.za\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
balsa has no tracked misspelling variants, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is balsa, spelled B-A-L-S-A.
Definition
- 1Nom vernaculaire de Ochroma pyramidale, arbre de la famille des Malvacées (Malvaceae). originaire des forêts équatoriales du Yucatan, d’Amérique centrale et d’Amérique du Sud, pouvant atteindre 30 mètres de haut en seulement 8 ans, dont le bois est plus léger que le liège.
- 2Bois provenant de cet arbre ayant une densité très faible.
- 3Radeau en Amérique latine.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how balsa appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Thor Heyerdhal utilisa du bois de balsa pour construire son célèbre radeau le Kon-Tiki.
Une planche de balsa, pendue à sa ceinture de crépine, lui faisait une épée.
This word in other languages
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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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "balsa", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).