Which to use
“passes” and “paste” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #3,321
- “passes” frequency rank
- #8,183
- “paste” frequency rank
- 11504
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | passes | paste |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | plural of pass | A soft moist mixture, in particular: |
Where the eye mixes passes and paste
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: passes vs paste
A purely visual mix-up. passes (/ˈpɑːsɪz/) and paste (/peɪst/) 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 11504, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
passes is recorded at frequency rank #3,321, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈpɑːsɪz/. paste is at rank #8,183, tagged as anoun, pronounced /peɪst/.
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 11504, this pair ranks #486,676 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of passes vs paste
Shared letters: aeps. Private to "passes": -. Private to "paste": t.
"passes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "paste" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "passes" for "paste" ever safe?
Which is more common, "passes" or "paste"?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "passes" and "paste" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "passes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "paste" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #486,676 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "passes" and "paste" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "paste vs pester". 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 #486,676 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.