balancevsbalancezWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: balance is a noun, balancez is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“balance” is a noun and “balancez” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#3,183
“balance” frequency rank
#47,177
“balancez” frequency rank
50360
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature balance balancez
Definition Instrument de mesure utilisé pour peser des éléments, pour déterminer leur masse. Deuxième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent du verbe balancer.

Where the eye mixes balance and balancez

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. balance runs 7 letters (CVCVCCV) against balancez's 8 (CVCVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
balance
8 ch
balancez

Visual trap between balance and balancez

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: balance is \ba.lɑ̃s\ while balancez is \ba.lɑ̃.se\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “balance” sits inside “balancez”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50360, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

balance is recorded at frequency rank #3,183, classified as anoun, pronounced \ba.lɑ̃s\. balancez is at rank #47,177, tagged as averb, pronounced \ba.lɑ̃.se\.

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 50360, this pair ranks #163,242 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of balance vs balancez

Shared letters: abceln. Private to "balance": -. Private to "balancez": z.

"balance" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCV  ·  "balancez" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • balance ← ablance · baalnce · balacne · balancce · balanec · balannce · ballance · balnace
  • balancez ← ablancez · baalncez · balacnez · balanccez · balancezz · balancze · balanecz · balanncez

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "balance" for "balancez" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "balance" is a noun and "balancez" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "balance" or "balancez" show up more?
"balance" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,183 in our French list, against #47,177 for "balancez". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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 "balance" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "balancez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #163,242 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "balance" and "balancez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "balancez vs balancier". 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 #163,242 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