PauvspesWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: Pau is a name, pes is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Pau” is a name and “pes” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#49,946
“Pau” frequency rank
#43,402
“pes” frequency rank
93348
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Pau pes
Definition Stadt in Südfrankreich 2. Person Singular Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs pesen

Letter map: Pau vs pes

Shared letters muted; letters that set Pau and pes apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. Pau (CVV) and pes (CVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

3 ch
Pau
3 ch
pes

Part-of-speech tell for Pau / pes

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Pau is aname and pesaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 93348, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Pau is recorded at frequency rank #49,946, classified as aname, pronounced […]. pes is at rank #43,402, tagged as averb, pronounced [peːs].

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 93348, this pair ranks #23,408 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Pau vs pes

Shared letters: p. Private to "Pau": au. Private to "pes": es.

"Pau" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "pes" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Pau" and "pes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Pau" is a name and "pes" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Pau" or "pes" show up more?
"pes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #43,402 in our German list, against #49,946 for "Pau". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "Pau" and "pes". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Pau" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #23,408 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Pau" and "pes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Pau vs puzzles". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #23,408 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