Which to use
“break” and “breath” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #7,793
- “break” frequency rank
- #40,640
- “breath” frequency rank
- 48433
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | break | breath |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | Souffle, haleine. |
Where the eye mixes break and breath
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. break runs 5 letters (CCVVC) against breath's 6 (CCVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses break with breath
A purely visual mix-up. break (\bʁɛk\) and breath (\breθ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48433, 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\. breath is at rank #40,640, tagged as anoun, pronounced \breθ\.
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 48433, this pair ranks #178,977 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of break vs breath
Shared letters: aber. Private to "break": k. Private to "breath": ht.
"break" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC · "breath" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "break" and "breath" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "break" or "breath" show up more?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "break" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "breath" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #178,977 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "break" and "breath" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bleach vs breath". 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 #178,977 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.