barréevsbarrezWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: barrée is a adjective, barrez is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“barrée” is an adjective and “barrez” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#25,217
“barrée” frequency rank
#46,019
“barrez” frequency rank
71236
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature barrée barrez
Definition Féminin singulier de barré. Deuxième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent du verbe barrer.

Same sound, different letters: barrée vs barrez

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. barrée (CVCCVV) and barrez (CVCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
barrée
6 ch
barrez

Ear matches; page differs - barrée and barrez

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: barrée and barrez carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ba.ʁe\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71236, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

barrée is recorded at frequency rank #25,217, classified as anadj, pronounced \ba.ʁe\. barrez is at rank #46,019, tagged as averb, pronounced \ba.ʁe\.

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 71236, this pair ranks #48,321 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of barrée vs barrez

Shared letters: aber. Private to "barrée": é. Private to "barrez": z.

"barrée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "barrez" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • barrez ← abrrez · barerz · barez · barrezz · barrze · bbarrez · brarez

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "barrée" and "barrez" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "barrée" is an adjective and "barrez" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "barrée" or "barrez"?
"barrée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,217 in our French list, against #46,019 for "barrez". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've separated the homophone pair "barrée" / "barrez". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "barrée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "barrez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #48,321 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "barrée" and "barrez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "baisez vs barrez". 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 #48,321 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