Which to use
“balade” and “ballade” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #6,465
- “balade” frequency rank
- #13,973
- “ballade” frequency rank
- 20438
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | balade | ballade |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Promenade sans but précis. | Poème à forme fixe, composé de couplets faits sur les mêmes rimes avec refrain et d’un envoi. |
Same sound, different letters: balade vs ballade
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters.
Ear matches; page differs - balade and ballade
This is the hard kind. balade and ballade are pronounced identically (\ba.lad\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20438, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
balade is recorded at frequency rank #6,465, classified as anoun, pronounced \ba.lad\. ballade is at rank #13,973, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ba.lad\.
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 20438, this pair ranks #368,268 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of balade vs ballade
Shared letters: abdel. Private to "balade": -. Private to "ballade": -.
"balade" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV · "ballade" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "balade" and "ballade" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "balade" vs "ballade" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.
- Full dictionary entry for "balade" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "ballade" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #368,268 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "balade" and "ballade" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ballade vs ballast". 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 #368,268 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.