Which to use
“balais” is an adjective and “blain” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #18,942
- “balais” frequency rank
- #40,141
- “blain” frequency rank
- 59083
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | balais | blain |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | De couleur de vin paillet, en parlant d’un rubis. | (Loire-Inférieure) Bateau plat très allongé, avec voile à livarde, qui naviguait sur les tourbières et qui pouvait porter jusqu’à 15 000 mottes de tourbe. Les plus grands avaient deux mâts. |
Where the eye mixes balais and blain
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. balais runs 6 letters (CVCVVC) against blain's 5 (CCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses balais with blain
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: balais is \ba.lɛ\ while blain is \blɛ̃\. 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 (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59083, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
balais is recorded at frequency rank #18,942, classified as anadj, pronounced \ba.lɛ\. blain is at rank #40,141, tagged as anoun, pronounced \blɛ̃\.
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 59083, this pair ranks #105,168 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of balais vs blain
Shared letters: abil. Private to "balais": s. Private to "blain": n.
"balais" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC · "blain" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "balais" for "blain" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "balais" or "blain" show up more?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "balais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "blain" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #105,168 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "balais" and "blain" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "begin vs blain". 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 #105,168 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.