Which to use
“ballade” and “ballast” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #13,973
- “ballade” frequency rank
- #43,797
- “ballast” frequency rank
- 57770
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | ballade | ballast |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Poème à forme fixe, composé de couplets faits sur les mêmes rimes avec refrain et d’un envoi. | Lest permettant de gérer la stabilité, l’assiette ou la gîte d’un navire. |
Where the eye mixes ballade and ballast
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. ballade (CVCCVCV) and ballast (CVCCVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Visual trap between ballade and ballast
A purely visual mix-up. ballade (\ba.lad\) and ballast (\ba.last\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57770, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
ballade is recorded at frequency rank #13,973, classified as anoun, pronounced \ba.lad\. ballast is at rank #43,797, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ba.last\.
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 57770, this pair ranks #113,081 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of ballade vs ballast
Shared letters: abl. Private to "ballade": de. Private to "ballast": st.
"ballade" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV · "ballast" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "ballade" and "ballast" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "ballade" vs "ballast" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "ballade" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "ballast" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #113,081 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "ballade" and "ballast" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ballast vs blast". 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 #113,081 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.