pasturevspictureWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#18,151
“pasture” frequency rank
#777
“picture” frequency rank
18928
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pasture picture
Definition Land, specifically, an open field, on which livestock is kept for feeding. A representation of anything (as a person, a landscape, a building) upon canvas, paper, or other surface, by drawing, painting, printing, photography, etc.

Where the eye mixes pasture and picture

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

7 ch
pasture
7 ch
picture

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. pasture (/ˈpɑːs.tjə/) and picture (/ˈpɪk.(t)ʃə/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18928, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pasture is recorded at frequency rank #18,151, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈpɑːs.tjə/. picture is at rank #777, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈpɪk.(t)ʃə/.

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 18928, this pair ranks #441,641 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of pasture vs picture

Shared letters: eprtu. Private to "pasture": as. Private to "picture": ci.

"pasture" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV  ·  "picture" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pastureapsture · passture · pastrue · pastture · pastuer · pasturre · pasutre · patsure
  • pictureipcture · pciture · piccture · pictrue · pictture · pictuer · picturre · picutre

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "pasture" and "picture" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ˈpɑːs.tjə/ versus /ˈpɪk.(t)ʃə/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "pasture" or "picture"?
"picture" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #777 in our English list, against #18,151 for "pasture". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list