paysvspiusTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#41,381
“pays” frequency rank
#19,671
“pius” frequency rank
61052
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pays pius
Definition Plural des Substantivs pay seinen eigenen moralischen Verpflichtungen nachkommend; pflichtbewusst, gewissenhaft, pflichtgetreu

Letter map: pays vs pius

Shared letters muted; letters that set pays and pius apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
pays
4 ch
pius

Role in the sentence - pays and pius

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: pays is anoun and piusanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 61052, 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]. pius is at rank #19,671, tagged as anadj.

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 61052, this pair ranks #764,068 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pays vs pius

Shared letters: ps. Private to "pays": ay. Private to "pius": iu.

"pays" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "pius" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • paysapys · pasy · payss · payys · ppays · pyas
  • piusipus · pisu · piuss · ppius · puis

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "pays" and "pius" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pays" is a noun and "pius" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "pays" or "pius" show up more?
"pius" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,671 in our German list, against #41,381 for "pays". 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 "pays" and "pius".

  • Full dictionary entry for "pays" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pius" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #764,068 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pays" and "pius" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pays vs PMS". 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 #764,068 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