Which to use
“breaks” and “breath” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #44,338
- “breaks” frequency rank
- #40,640
- “breath” frequency rank
- 84978
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | breaks | breath |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel de break. | Souffle, haleine. |
Where the eye mixes breaks and breath
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. breaks and breath follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between breaks and breath
A purely visual mix-up. breaks (\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 share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 84978, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
breaks is recorded at frequency rank #44,338, 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 84978, this pair ranks #12,080 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of breaks vs breath
Shared letters: aber. Private to "breaks": ks. Private to "breath": ht.
"breaks" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCC · "breath" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "breaks" and "breath" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "breaks" vs "breath" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "breaks" and "breath" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "breaks" 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 #12,080 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "breaks" and "breath" 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 #12,080 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.