briséesvsbrûléesTell them apart

Quick tell: brisées is a noun, brûlées is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“brisées” is a noun and “brûlées” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#22,784
“brisées” frequency rank
#20,942
“brûlées” frequency rank
43726
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature brisées brûlées
Definition Branches que le valet de limiers rompt aux arbres et qu’il place dans son chemin pour reconnaître l’endroit où est la bête et où il l’a détournée. Féminin pluriel de brûlé.

Where the eye mixes brisées and brûlées

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. brisées and brûlées follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
brisées
7 ch
brûlées

Visual trap between brisées and brûlées

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: brisées is \bʁi.ze\ while brûlées is \bʁy.le\. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43726, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

brisées is recorded at frequency rank #22,784, classified as anoun, pronounced \bʁi.ze\. brûlées is at rank #20,942, tagged as anadj, pronounced \bʁy.le\.

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 43726, this pair ranks #215,898 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of brisées vs brûlées

Shared letters: bersé. Private to "brisées": i. Private to "brûlées": lû.

"brisées" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVVC  ·  "brûlées" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "brisées" for "brûlées" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "brisées" is a noun and "brûlées" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "brisées" or "brûlées" show up more?
"brûlées" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,942 in our French list, against #22,784 for "brisées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "brisées" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "brûlées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #215,898 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "brisées" and "brûlées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bridés vs brisées". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #215,898 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