balisevsbâtisseConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#19,214
“balise” frequency rank
#19,466
“bâtisse” frequency rank
38680
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature balise bâtisse
Definition Tout moyen de marquage d’un point de la surface terrestre. Action ou manière de bâtir.

Where the eye mixes balise and bâtisse

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. balise runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against bâtisse's 7 (CVCVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
balise
7 ch
bâtisse

Visual trap between balise and bâtisse

A purely visual mix-up. balise (\ba.liz\) and bâtisse (\ba.tis\) 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 38680, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

balise is recorded at frequency rank #19,214, classified as anoun, pronounced \ba.liz\. bâtisse is at rank #19,466, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ba.tis\.

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 38680, this pair ranks #253,570 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of balise vs bâtisse

Shared letters: beis. Private to "balise": al. Private to "bâtisse": tâ.

"balise" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "bâtisse" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • balise ← ablise · bailse · balies · balisse · ballise · balsie · bbalise

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "balise" for "bâtisse" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ba.liz\ versus \ba.tis\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "balise" vs "bâtisse" - which ranks higher?
"balise" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,214 in our French list, against #19,466 for "bâtisse". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "balise" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bâtisse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #253,570 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "balise" and "bâtisse" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "baissa vs bâtisse". 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 #253,570 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