paidvsparkWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: paid is a verb, park is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“paid” is a verb and “park” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#792
“paid” frequency rank
#717
“park” frequency rank
1509
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature paid park
Definition simple past and past participle of pay An area of land set aside for environment preservation or recreation.

Where the eye mixes paid and park

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
paid
4 ch
park

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: paid is /peɪd/ while park is /pɑɹk/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1509, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

paid is recorded at frequency rank #792, classified as averb, pronounced /peɪd/. park is at rank #717, tagged as anoun, pronounced /pɑɹk/.

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 1509, this pair ranks #527,283 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of paid vs park

Shared letters: ap. Private to "paid": di. Private to "park": kr.

"paid" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "park" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • paidapid · padi · paidd · piad · ppaid
  • parkaprk · pakr · parkk · parrk · ppark · prak

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "paid" and "park" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "paid" is a verb and "park" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "paid" or "park"?
"park" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #717 in our English list, against #792 for "paid". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "paid" and "park". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "paid" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "park" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #527,283 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "paid" and "park" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "paid vs plied". 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list