Which to use
“balai” is a noun and “balaye” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #15,809
- “balai” frequency rank
- #40,133
- “balaye” frequency rank
- 55942
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | balai | balaye |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Outil fait d’un faisceau souple, composé de fibres végétales ou synthétiques, ou d’une brosse, fixée au bout d’un long manche et destiné à nettoyer les poussières et déchets tombés au sol. | Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent du verbe balayer. |
Where the eye mixes balai and balaye
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. balai runs 5 letters (CVCVV) against balaye's 6 (CVCVVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: balai vs balaye
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: balai is \ba.lɛ\ while balaye is \ba.lɛj\. 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 (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55942, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
balai is recorded at frequency rank #15,809, classified as anoun, pronounced \ba.lɛ\. balaye is at rank #40,133, tagged as averb, pronounced \ba.lɛj\.
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 55942, this pair ranks #124,200 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of balai vs balaye
Shared letters: abl. Private to "balai": i. Private to "balaye": ey.
"balai" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV · "balaye" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "balai" and "balaye" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "balai" or "balaye"?
After this comparison
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "balai" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "balaye" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #124,200 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "balai" and "balaye" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "balaye vs basale". 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 #124,200 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.