barquevsbarreWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#15,097
“barque” frequency rank
#2,068
“barre” frequency rank
17165
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature barque barre
Definition Petit bateau. Pièce de bois, de métal, etc., étroite et longue.

Where the eye mixes barque and barre

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
barque
5 ch
barre

Look-alike desk: barque vs barre

A purely visual mix-up. barque (\baʁk\) and barre (\baʁ\) 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 17165, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

barque is recorded at frequency rank #15,097, classified as anoun, pronounced \baʁk\. barre is at rank #2,068, tagged as anoun, pronounced \baʁ\.

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 17165, this pair ranks #384,481 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of barque vs barre

Shared letters: aber. Private to "barque": qu. Private to "barre": -.

"barque" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "barre" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • barqueabrque · baqrue · barqeu · barqque · barrque · baruqe · bbarque
  • barreabrre · bare · barer · bbarre · brare

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "barque" and "barre" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\baʁk\ versus \baʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "barque" or "barre"?
"barre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,068 in our French list, against #15,097 for "barque". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "barque" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "barre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #384,481 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "barque" and "barre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "baquet vs barque". 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 #384,481 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