paidvsprideConfusable pair

Quick tell: paid is a verb, pride is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#44,122
“paid” frequency rank
#24,463
“pride” frequency rank
68585
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature paid pride
Definition Präteritum (simple past) des Verbs pay Stolz

Letter map: paid vs pride

Shared letters muted; letters that set paid and pride apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. paid runs 4 letters (CVVC) against pride's 5 (CCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
paid
5 ch
pride

Grammar separator: paid vs pride

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: paid is averb and prideanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68585, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

paid is recorded at frequency rank #44,122, classified as averb, pronounced […]. pride is at rank #24,463, tagged as anoun, pronounced [praɪd].

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 68585, this pair ranks #503,168 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of paid vs pride

Shared letters: dip. Private to "paid": a. Private to "pride": er.

"paid" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "pride" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • paid ← apid · padi · paidd · ppaid
  • pride ← pirde · ppride · prdie · pridde · pried · prride · rpide

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "paid" and "pride" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "paid" is a verb and "pride" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "paid" vs "pride" - which ranks higher?
"pride" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,463 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

Pair "paid" vs "pride" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "paid" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pride" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #503,168 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "paid" and "pride" 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 #503,168 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