paidvspakWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: paid is a verb, pak is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“paid” is a verb and “pak” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#44,122
“paid” frequency rank
#33,218
“pak” frequency rank
77340
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature paid pak
Definition Präteritum (simple past) des Verbs pay dann, daraufhin

Letter map: paid vs pak

Shared letters muted; letters that set paid and pak apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. paid runs 4 letters (CVVC) against pak's 3 (CVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
paid
3 ch
pak

Role in the sentence - paid and pak

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: paid is averb and pakanadverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 77340, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

paid is recorded at frequency rank #44,122, classified as averb, pronounced […]. pak is at rank #33,218, tagged as anadv, pronounced [pak].

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 77340, this pair ranks #262,991 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of paid vs pak

Shared letters: ap. Private to "paid": di. Private to "pak": k.

"paid" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "pak" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • paid ← apid · padi · paidd · ppaid

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "paid" and "pak" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "paid" is a verb and "pak" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "paid" or "pak" show up more?
"pak" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,218 in our German list, against #44,122 for "paid". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "paid" and "pak".

  • Full dictionary entry for "paid" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pak" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #262,991 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "paid" and "pak" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "paid vs puzzles". 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 #262,991 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list