barèmevsbromeTell them apart

Which to use

“barème” and “brome” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#15,572
“barème” frequency rank
#31,864
“brome” frequency rank
47436
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature barème brome
Definition Recueil de comptes déjà faits à l'avance (certains présentés sous la forme de tableaux), facilitant le travail des comptables. Élément chimique de numéro atomique 35 et de symbole Br qui fait partie des halogènes.

Where the eye mixes barème and brome

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. barème runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against brome's 5 (CCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
barème
5 ch
brome

Why the eye confuses barème with brome

A purely visual mix-up. barème (\ba.ʁɛm\) and brome (\bʁom\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47436, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

barème is recorded at frequency rank #15,572, classified as anoun, pronounced \ba.ʁɛm\. brome is at rank #31,864, tagged as anoun, pronounced \bʁom\.

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 47436, this pair ranks #186,953 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of barème vs brome

Shared letters: bemr. Private to "barème": aè. Private to "brome": o.

"barème" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "brome" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • brome ← bbrome · borme · brmoe · broem · bromme · brrome · rbome

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "barème" for "brome" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ba.ʁɛm\ versus \bʁom\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "barème" or "brome"?
"barème" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,572 in our French list, against #31,864 for "brome". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "barème" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "brome" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #186,953 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "barème" and "brome" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "become vs brome". 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 #186,953 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list