balancervsbalancezWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“balancer” and “balancez” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#8,812
“balancer” frequency rank
#47,177
“balancez” frequency rank
55989
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature balancer balancez
Definition Tenir en équilibre. Deuxième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent du verbe balancer.

Same sound, different letters: balancer vs balancez

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. balancer and balancez follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

8 ch
balancer
8 ch
balancez

Ear matches; page differs - balancer and balancez

This is the hard kind. balancer and balancez are pronounced identically (\ba.lɑ̃.se\) and both work as averb. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by a single letter - r in “balancer” becomes z in “balancez”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55989, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

balancer is recorded at frequency rank #8,812, classified as averb, pronounced \ba.lɑ̃.se\. 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 55989, this pair ranks #123,918 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of balancer vs balancez

Shared letters: abceln. Private to "balancer": r. Private to "balancez": z.

"balancer" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCCVC  ·  "balancez" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • balancer ← ablancer · baalncer · balacner · balanccer · balancerr · balancre · balanecr · balanncer
  • balancez ← ablancez · baalncez · balacnez · balanccez · balancezz · balancze · balanecz · balanncez

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "balancer" and "balancez" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ba.lɑ̃.se\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
In ordinary French text, does "balancer" or "balancez" show up more?
"balancer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,812 in our French list, against #47,177 for "balancez". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've separated the homophone pair "balancer" / "balancez". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "balancer" 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 #123,918 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "balancer" 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 #123,918 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