Which to use
“battre” is a verb and “bavure” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #1,765
- “battre” frequency rank
- #25,901
- “bavure” frequency rank
- 27666
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | battre | bavure |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Frapper de coups répétés. | Petite trace que les joints des pièces d’un moule laissent sur l’objet moulé. |
Where the eye mixes battre and bavure
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. battre (CVCCCV) and bavure (CVCVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Why the eye confuses battre with bavure
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: battre is \batʁ\ while bavure is \ba.vyʁ\. 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 (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27666, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
battre is recorded at frequency rank #1,765, classified as averb, pronounced \batʁ\. bavure is at rank #25,901, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ba.vyʁ\.
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 27666, this pair ranks #327,601 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of battre vs bavure
Shared letters: aber. Private to "battre": t. Private to "bavure": uv.
"battre" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV · "bavure" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "battre" and "bavure" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "battre" or "bavure" show up more?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "battre" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "bavure" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #327,601 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "battre" and "bavure" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bavure vs bavures". 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 #327,601 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.