Which to use
“break” and “breaks” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #7,793
- “break” frequency rank
- #44,338
- “breaks” frequency rank
- 52131
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | break | breaks |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Automobile dont le coffre est agrandi en hauteur et peut généralement communiquer avec l'habitacle en baissant le dossier de la banquette arrière amovible pour augmenter le volume utile. | Pluriel de break. |
Same sound, different letters: break vs breaks
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters.
Homophone desk: break vs breaks
This is the hard kind. break and breaks are pronounced identically (\bʁɛk\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “break” sits inside “breaks”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52131, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
break is recorded at frequency rank #7,793, classified as anoun, pronounced \bʁɛk\. breaks is at rank #44,338, tagged as anoun, pronounced \bʁɛk\.
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 52131, this pair ranks #149,946 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of break vs breaks
Shared letters: abekr. Private to "break": -. Private to "breaks": s.
"break" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC · "breaks" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "break" for "breaks" ever safe?
Frequency check: "break" vs "breaks" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
You've separated the homophone pair "break" / "breaks". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "break" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "breaks" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #149,946 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "break" and "breaks" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bread vs breaks". 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 #149,946 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.