pacesvspackWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“paces” and “pack” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#23,348
“paces” frequency rank
#2,224
“pack” frequency rank
25572
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature paces pack
Definition plural of pace A bundle made up and prepared to be carried; especially, a bundle to be carried on the back, but also a load for an animal, a bale.

Where the eye mixes paces and pack

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
paces
4 ch
pack

Look-alike desk: paces vs pack

A purely visual mix-up. paces (/ˈpeɪsɪz/) and pack (/pæk/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25572, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

paces is recorded at frequency rank #23,348, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈpeɪsɪz/. pack is at rank #2,224, tagged as anoun, pronounced /pæk/.

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 25572, this pair ranks #393,273 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of paces vs pack

Shared letters: acp. Private to "paces": es. Private to "pack": k.

"paces" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "pack" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pacesapces · pacces · pacess · pacse · paecs · pcaes · ppaces
  • packapck · pacck · packk · pakc · pcak · ppack

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "paces" and "pack" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/ˈpeɪsɪz/ versus /pæk/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "paces" or "pack"?
"pack" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,224 in our English list, against #23,348 for "paces". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "paces" and "pack" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "paces" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pack" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #393,273 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "paces" and "pack" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "paces vs pecs". 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 #393,273 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list