basquesvsbloquesWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#18,661
“basques” frequency rank
#42,191
“bloques” frequency rank
60852
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature basques bloques
Definition Pluriel de basque. Deuxième personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent du verbe bloquer.

Where the eye mixes basques and bloques

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

7 ch
basques
7 ch
bloques

Look-alike desk: basques vs bloques

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: basques is \bask\ while bloques is \blɔk\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60852, 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\. bloques is at rank #42,191, tagged as averb, pronounced \blɔk\.

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 60852, this pair ranks #95,451 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of basques vs bloques

Shared letters: beqsu. Private to "basques": a. Private to "bloques": lo.

"basques" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC  ·  "bloques" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • basquesabsques · baqsues · basqeus · basqques · basquess · basquse · bassques · basuqes
  • bloquesbbloques · blloques · bloqeus · bloqques · bloquess · bloquse · blouqes · blqoues

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "basques" for "bloques" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "basques" is an adjective and "bloques" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "basques" or "bloques" show up more?
"basques" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,661 in our French list, against #42,191 for "bloques". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "basques" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bloques" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #95,451 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "basques" and "bloques" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bloques vs braqués". 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 #95,451 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