Which to use
“balaie” and “balayée” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #34,886
- “balaie” frequency rank
- #45,461
- “balayée” frequency rank
- 80347
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | balaie | balayée |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent du verbe balayer. | Participe passé féminin singulier du verbe balayer. |
Where the eye mixes balaie and balayée
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. balaie runs 6 letters (CVCVVV) against balayée's 7 (CVCVVVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between balaie and balayée
A purely visual mix-up. balaie (\ba.lɛ\) and balayée (\ba.lɛ.je\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 80347, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
balaie is recorded at frequency rank #34,886, classified as averb, pronounced \ba.lɛ\. balayée is at rank #45,461, tagged as averb, pronounced \ba.lɛ.je\.
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 80347, this pair ranks #21,181 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of balaie vs balayée
Shared letters: abel. Private to "balaie": i. Private to "balayée": yé.
"balaie" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVV · "balayée" · 7 letters · shape CVCVVVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- balaie ← ablaie · baalie · balaei · baliae · ballaie · bbalaie · blaaie
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "balaie" and "balayée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "balaie" vs "balayée" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "balaie" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "balayée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #21,181 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "balaie" and "balayée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "balayée vs Blaye". 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 #21,181 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.