pacesvspaneWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#23,348
“paces” frequency rank
#25,874
“pane” frequency rank
49222
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature paces pane
Definition plural of pace An individual sheet of glass in a window, door, etc.

Where the eye mixes paces and pane

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

5 ch
paces
4 ch
pane

Visual trap between paces and pane

A purely visual mix-up. paces (/ˈpeɪsɪz/) and pane (/peɪn/) 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 49222, 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/. pane is at rank #25,874, tagged as anoun, pronounced /peɪn/.

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 49222, this pair ranks #185,645 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of paces vs pane

Shared letters: aep. Private to "paces": cs. Private to "pane": n.

"paces" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "pane" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pacesapces · pacces · pacess · pacse · paecs · pcaes · ppaces
  • paneapne · paen · panne · pnae · ppane

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "paces" and "pane" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ˈpeɪsɪz/ versus /peɪn/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "paces" or "pane"?
"paces" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,348 in our English list, against #25,874 for "pane". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "paces" and "pane" 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 "pane" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #185,645 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "paces" and "pane" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pane vs Pyke". 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 #185,645 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