pagevsphageTell them apart

Which to use

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

#791
“page” frequency rank
#43,841
“phage” frequency rank
44632
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature page phage
Definition One of the many pieces of paper bound together within a book or similar document. A virus that is parasitic on bacteria.

Where the eye mixes page and phage

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

4 ch
page
5 ch
phage

Look-alike desk: page vs phage

A purely visual mix-up. page (/peɪd͡ʒ/) and phage (/feɪd͡ʒ/) 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 44632, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

page is recorded at frequency rank #791, classified as anoun, pronounced /peɪd͡ʒ/. phage is at rank #43,841, tagged as anoun, pronounced /feɪd͡ʒ/.

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 44632, this pair ranks #228,759 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of page vs phage

Shared letters: aegp. Private to "page": -. Private to "phage": h.

"page" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "phage" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • page ← apge · paeg · pagge · pgae · ppage
  • phage ← hpage · pahge · phaeg · phagge · phgae · phhage · pphage

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "page" and "phage" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/peɪd͡ʒ/ versus /feɪd͡ʒ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary English text, does "page" or "phage" show up more?
"page" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #791 in our English list, against #43,841 for "phage". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "page" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "phage" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #228,759 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "page" and "phage" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Pape vs phage". 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 #228,759 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