braquésvsbriqueTell them apart

Quick tell: braqués is a verb, brique is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“braqués” is a verb and “brique” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#43,307
“braqués” frequency rank
#10,832
“brique” frequency rank
54139
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature braqués brique
Definition Participe passé masculin pluriel du verbe braquer. Bloc de pierre artificielle fabriqué avec de la terre argileuse pétrie, moulée, séchée, cuite, et dont on se sert comme matériau de construction. Elle peut être pleine, alvéolée ou creuse.

Where the eye mixes braqués and brique

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. braqués runs 7 letters (CCVCVVC) against brique's 6 (CCVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
braqués
6 ch
brique

Why the eye confuses braqués with brique

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: braqués is \bʁa.ke\ while brique is \bʁik\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54139, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

braqués is recorded at frequency rank #43,307, classified as averb, pronounced \bʁa.ke\. brique is at rank #10,832, tagged as anoun, pronounced \bʁik\.

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 54139, this pair ranks #136,004 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of braqués vs brique

Shared letters: bqru. Private to "braqués": asé. Private to "brique": ei.

"braqués" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVVC  ·  "brique" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • brique ← bbrique · birque · briqeu · briqque · briuqe · brqiue · brrique · rbique

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "braqués" and "brique" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "braqués" is a verb and "brique" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "braqués" or "brique" show up more?
"brique" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,832 in our French list, against #43,307 for "braqués". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "braqués" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "brique" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #136,004 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "braqués" and "brique" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "branles 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 #136,004 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