Which to use
“ballade” and “balle” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #13,973
- “ballade” frequency rank
- #2,067
- “balle” frequency rank
- 16040
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | ballade | balle |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Poème à forme fixe, composé de couplets faits sur les mêmes rimes avec refrain et d’un envoi. | Objet sphérique utilisé pour jouer. |
Where the eye mixes ballade and balle
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. ballade runs 7 letters (CVCCVCV) against balle's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between ballade and balle
A purely visual mix-up. ballade (\ba.lad\) and balle (\bal\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16040, 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\. balle is at rank #2,067, tagged as anoun, pronounced \bal\.
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 16040, this pair ranks #389,673 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of ballade vs balle
Shared letters: abel. Private to "ballade": d. Private to "balle": -.
"ballade" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV · "balle" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "ballade" for "balle" ever safe?
Frequency check: "ballade" vs "balle" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "ballade" and "balle" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "ballade" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "balle" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #389,673 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "ballade" and "balle" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ballade vs ballast". 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 #389,673 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.