pacesvsPapeTell them apart

Which to use

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

#23,348
“paces” frequency rank
#47,245
“Pape” frequency rank
70593
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature paces Pape
Definition plural of pace A Roman Catholic; a Papist.

Where the eye mixes paces and Pape

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. paces runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against Pape's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
paces
4 ch
Pape

Visual trap between paces and Pape

A purely visual mix-up. paces (/ˈpeɪsɪz/) and Pape (/peɪp/) 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 70593, 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/. Pape is at rank #47,245, tagged as anoun, pronounced /peɪp/.

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 70593, this pair ranks #49,956 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of paces vs Pape

Shared letters: aep. Private to "paces": cs. Private to "Pape": -.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • paces ← apces · pacces · pacess · pacse · paecs · pcaes · ppaces
  • Pape ← appe · paep · pappe · ppae · ppape

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "paces" for "Pape" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈpeɪsɪz/ versus /peɪp/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "paces" or "Pape"?
"paces" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,348 in our English list, against #47,245 for "Pape". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "paces" and "Pape" 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 "Pape" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #49,956 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "paces" and "Pape" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Pape vs PPA". 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 #49,956 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