paragonvspartonWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#27,239
“paragon” frequency rank
#27,957
“parton” frequency rank
55196
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature paragon parton
Definition A person of preeminent qualities, who acts as a pattern or model for others. Any of the constituent particles making up a compound particle, e.g. the quarks and gluons which make up hadrons.

Letter map: paragon vs parton

Shared letters muted; letters that set paragon and parton apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. paragon runs 7 letters (CVCVCVC) against parton's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
paragon
6 ch
parton

Pair insight - paragon / parton

paragon and parton are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55196, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

paragon is recorded at frequency rank #27,239, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈpæɹəɡən/. parton is at rank #27,957, tagged as anoun.

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 55196, this pair ranks #135,445 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of paragon vs parton

Shared letters: anopr. Private to "paragon": g. Private to "parton": t.

"paragon" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC  ·  "parton" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • paragon ← apragon · paargon · paraggon · paragno · paragonn · paraogn · pargaon · parragon
  • parton ← aprton · parotn · parrton · partno · partonn · partton · pparton · praton

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "paragon" for "parton" ever safe?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary English text, does "paragon" or "parton" show up more?
"paragon" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,239 in our English list, against #27,957 for "parton". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "paragon" and "parton".

  • Full dictionary entry for "paragon" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "parton" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #135,445 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "paragon" and "parton" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "paragon vs parasol". 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 #135,445 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