Which to use
“banquet” and “barques” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #14,610
- “banquet” frequency rank
- #33,137
- “barques” frequency rank
- 47747
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | banquet | barques |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Festin, repas d’apparat. | Pluriel de barque. |
Where the eye mixes banquet and barques
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. banquet and barques follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: banquet vs barques
A purely visual mix-up. banquet (\bɑ̃.kɛ\) and barques (\baʁk\) 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 47747, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
banquet is recorded at frequency rank #14,610, classified as anoun, pronounced \bɑ̃.kɛ\. barques is at rank #33,137, tagged as anoun, pronounced \baʁk\.
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 47747, this pair ranks #184,457 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of banquet vs barques
Shared letters: abequ. Private to "banquet": nt. Private to "barques": rs.
"banquet" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC · "barques" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "banquet" for "barques" ever safe?
Frequency check: "banquet" vs "barques" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "banquet" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "barques" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #184,457 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "banquet" and "barques" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "barges vs barques". 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 #184,457 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.