parkvspayWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#717
“park” frequency rank
#390
“pay” frequency rank
1107
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature park pay
Definition An area of land set aside for environment preservation or recreation. To give money or other compensation to in exchange for goods or services.

Where the eye mixes park and pay

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

4 ch
park
3 ch
pay

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: park is /pɑɹk/ while pay is /peɪ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1107, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

park is recorded at frequency rank #717, classified as anoun, pronounced /pɑɹk/. pay is at rank #390, tagged as averb, pronounced /peɪ/.

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 1107, this pair ranks #528,085 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of park vs pay

Shared letters: ap. Private to "park": kr. Private to "pay": y.

"park" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "pay" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • parkaprk · pakr · parkk · parrk · ppark · prak

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "park" and "pay" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "park" is a noun and "pay" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "park" or "pay"?
"pay" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #390 in our English list, against #717 for "park". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list