paysvspeaksWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#41,381
“pays” frequency rank
#46,906
“peaks” frequency rank
88287
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pays peaks
Definition Plural des Substantivs pay 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs peak

Letter map: pays vs peaks

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

4 ch
pays
5 ch
peaks

Role in the sentence - pays and peaks

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: pays is anoun and peaksaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 88287, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pays is recorded at frequency rank #41,381, classified as anoun, pronounced [peɪz]. peaks is at rank #46,906, tagged as averb, pronounced […].

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 88287, this pair ranks #70,136 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pays vs peaks

Shared letters: aps. Private to "pays": y. Private to "peaks": ek.

"pays" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "peaks" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pays ← apys · pasy · payss · payys · ppays · pyas
  • peaks ← epaks · paeks · peakks · peakss · peask · pekas · ppeaks

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "pays" and "peaks" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pays" is a noun and "peaks" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "pays" or "peaks"?
"pays" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #41,381 in our German list, against #46,906 for "peaks". 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 "pays" and "peaks". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pays" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "peaks" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #70,136 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pays" and "peaks" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "peaks 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 #70,136 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