basquesvsbattuesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#18,661
“basques” frequency rank
#22,778
“battues” frequency rank
41439
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature basques battues
Definition Pluriel de basque. Féminin pluriel de battu.

Where the eye mixes basques and battues

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

7 ch
basques
7 ch
battues

Why the eye confuses basques with battues

A purely visual mix-up. basques (\bask\) and battues (\ba.ty\) 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 41439, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

basques is recorded at frequency rank #18,661, classified as anadj, pronounced \bask\. battues is at rank #22,778, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ba.ty\.

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 41439, this pair ranks #233,086 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of basques vs battues

Shared letters: abesu. Private to "basques": q. Private to "battues": t.

"basques" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC  ·  "battues" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • basquesabsques · baqsues · basqeus · basqques · basquess · basquse · bassques · basuqes
  • battuesabttues · batteus · battuess · battuse · batues · batutes · bbattues · btatues

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "basques" and "battues" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\bask\ versus \ba.ty\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "basques" or "battues" show up more?
"basques" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,661 in our French list, against #22,778 for "battues". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "basques" and "battues" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "basques" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "battues" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #233,086 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "basques" and "battues" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "batteurs vs battues". 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 #233,086 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