Which to use
“paced” is a verb and “pacer” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #13,779
- “paced” frequency rank
- #41,297
- “pacer” frequency rank
- 55076
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | paced | pacer |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of pace | One who paces. |
Letter map: paced vs pacer
Shared letters muted; letters that set paced and pacer apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. paced and pacer follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Part-of-speech tell for paced / pacer
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: paced is averb and paceranoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - d in “paced” becomes r in “pacer”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55076, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
paced is recorded at frequency rank #13,779, classified as averb, pronounced /peɪst/. pacer is at rank #41,297, tagged as anoun.
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 55076, this pair ranks #136,339 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of paced vs pacer
Shared letters: acep. Private to "paced": d. Private to "pacer": r.
"paced" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "pacer" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "paced" for "pacer" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "paced" or "pacer" show up more?
After this comparison
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "paced" and "pacer".
- Full dictionary entry for "paced" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "pacer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #136,339 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "paced" and "pacer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pacer vs poacher". 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 #136,339 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.