Which to use
“ballade” and “blade” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #13,973
- “ballade” frequency rank
- #20,937
- “blade” frequency rank
- 34910
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | ballade | blade |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Poème à forme fixe, composé de couplets faits sur les mêmes rimes avec refrain et d’un envoi. | Variante de oblade (poisson). |
Where the eye mixes ballade and blade
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses ballade with blade
A purely visual mix-up. ballade (\ba.lad\) and blade (\blad\) 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 34910, 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\. blade is at rank #20,937, tagged as anoun, pronounced \blad\.
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 34910, this pair ranks #280,512 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of ballade vs blade
Shared letters: abdel. Private to "ballade": -. Private to "blade": -.
"ballade" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV · "blade" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "ballade" and "blade" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "ballade" or "blade"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "ballade" and "blade" 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 "blade" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #280,512 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "ballade" and "blade" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bane vs blade". 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 #280,512 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.