baissavsbasseWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: baissa is a verb, basse is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“baissa” is a verb and “basse” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#48,355
“baissa” frequency rank
#2,162
“basse” frequency rank
50517
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature baissa basse
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de baisser. Ligne mélodique qui contient les notes les plus graves.

Where the eye mixes baissa and basse

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
baissa
5 ch
basse

Visual trap between baissa and basse

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: baissa is \bɛ.sa\ while basse is \bɑs\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50517, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

baissa is recorded at frequency rank #48,355, classified as averb, pronounced \bɛ.sa\. basse is at rank #2,162, tagged as anoun, pronounced \bɑs\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 50517, this pair ranks #162,050 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of baissa vs basse

Shared letters: abs. Private to "baissa": i. Private to "basse": e.

"baissa" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV  ·  "basse" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • baissaabissa · baisa · baisas · basisa · bbaissa · biassa
  • basseabsse · bbasse · bsase

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "baissa" for "basse" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "baissa" is a verb and "basse" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "baissa" or "basse" show up more?
"basse" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,162 in our French list, against #48,355 for "baissa". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "baissa" and "basse" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "baissa" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "basse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #162,050 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "baissa" and "basse" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "baisez vs baissa". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #162,050 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list