payvspeasyWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: pay is a verb, peasy is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#390
“pay” frequency rank
#48,405
“peasy” frequency rank
48795
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pay peasy
Definition To give money or other compensation to in exchange for goods or services. Resembling or characteristic of peas.

Letter map: pay vs peasy

Shared letters muted; letters that set pay and peasy apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

3 ch
pay
5 ch
peasy

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: pay is averb and peasyanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48795, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pay is recorded at frequency rank #390, classified as averb, pronounced /peɪ/. peasy is at rank #48,405, tagged as anadj.

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 48795, this pair ranks #189,727 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pay vs peasy

Shared letters: apy. Private to "pay": -. Private to "peasy": es.

"pay" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "peasy" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • peasyepasy · paesy · peassy · peasyy · peays · pesay · ppeasy

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "pay" and "peasy" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pay" is a verb and "peasy" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "pay" or "peasy"?
"pay" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #390 in our English list, against #48,405 for "peasy". 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