Which to use
“ballot” and “blot” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #33,564
- “ballot” frequency rank
- #44,900
- “blot” frequency rank
- 78464
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | ballot | blot |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Petite balle de marchandises. | Instrument pour mesurer la marche d’un navire (élément du loch). |
Where the eye mixes ballot and blot
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. ballot runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against blot's 4 (CCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between ballot and blot
A purely visual mix-up. ballot (\ba.lo\) and blot (\blo\) 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 78464, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
ballot is recorded at frequency rank #33,564, classified as anoun, pronounced \ba.lo\. blot is at rank #44,900, tagged as anoun, pronounced \blo\.
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 78464, this pair ranks #25,663 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of ballot vs blot
Shared letters: blot. Private to "ballot": a. Private to "blot": -.
"ballot" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "blot" · 4 letters · shape CCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "ballot" for "blot" ever safe?
Frequency check: "ballot" vs "blot" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "ballot" and "blot" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "ballot" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "blot" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #25,663 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "ballot" and "blot" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "below vs blot". 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 #25,663 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.