Which to use
“ballast” and “blast” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #43,797
- “ballast” frequency rank
- #44,899
- “blast” frequency rank
- 88696
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | ballast | blast |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Lest permettant de gérer la stabilité, l’assiette ou la gîte d’un navire. | Synonyme de « effet de souffle ». |
Where the eye mixes ballast and blast
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses ballast with blast
A purely visual mix-up. ballast (\ba.last\) and blast (\blast\) 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 88696, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
ballast is recorded at frequency rank #43,797, classified as anoun, pronounced \ba.last\. blast is at rank #44,899, tagged as anoun, pronounced \blast\.
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 88696, this pair ranks #6,659 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of ballast vs blast
Shared letters: ablst. Private to "ballast": -. Private to "blast": -.
"ballast" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC · "blast" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "ballast" and "blast" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "ballast" or "blast"?
After this comparison
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "ballast" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "blast" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #6,659 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "ballast" and "blast" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "blast vs blaster". 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 #6,659 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.