# Pali vs pao

> English confusable word pair

## The two words

### Pali
*name · IPA /ˈpɑːli/ · frequency rank #42,319*
A Middle Indo-Aryan language of north India, closely related to Sanskrit; the sacred language of Theravāda Buddhism.

### pao
*noun · frequency rank #25,514*
A fairy chess piece which moves identically to the xiangqi cannon, moving orthogonally and must hop over a piece of either side to capture.

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/vs/pali-vs-pao