bakervsbaséeTell them apart

Quick tell: baker is a verb, basée is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“baker” is a verb and “basée” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#13,111
“baker” frequency rank
#4,126
“basée” frequency rank
17237
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature baker basée
Definition Fixer (l’éclairage, les réflexions, etc.) dans la texture d’un objet afin d’améliorer les performances de rendu. Féminin singulier de basé.

Where the eye mixes baker and basée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
baker
5 ch
basée

Why the eye confuses baker with basée

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: baker is \bɛ.ke\ while basée is \ba.ze\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17237, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

baker is recorded at frequency rank #13,111, classified as averb, pronounced \bɛ.ke\. basée is at rank #4,126, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ba.ze\.

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 17237, this pair ranks #384,158 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of baker vs basée

Shared letters: abe. Private to "baker": kr. Private to "basée": .

"baker" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "basée" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bakerabker · baekr · bakerr · bakker · bakre · bbaker · bkaer

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "baker" for "basée" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "baker" is a verb and "basée" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "baker" or "basée"?
"basée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,126 in our French list, against #13,111 for "baker". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "baker" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "basée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #384,158 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "baker" and "basée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "badger vs baker". 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 #384,158 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