peasevsposeWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#37,149
“pease” frequency rank
#6,084
“pose” frequency rank
43233
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pease pose
Definition Alternative form of pea (“common plant; its edible seed”). Common cold, head cold; catarrh.

Where the eye mixes pease and pose

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
pease
4 ch
pose

Why the eye confuses pease with pose

A purely visual mix-up. pease (/piːz/) and pose (/poʊz/) 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 43233, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pease is recorded at frequency rank #37,149, classified as anoun, pronounced /piːz/. pose is at rank #6,084, tagged as anoun, pronounced /poʊz/.

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 43233, this pair ranks #241,951 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pease vs pose

Shared letters: eps. Private to "pease": a. Private to "pose": o.

"pease" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "pose" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • peaseepase · paese · peaes · peasse · pesae · ppease
  • poseopse · poes · ppose · psoe

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pease" for "pose" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/piːz/ versus /poʊz/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "pease" vs "pose" - which ranks higher?
"pose" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,084 in our English list, against #37,149 for "pease". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pease" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pose" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #241,951 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pease" and "pose" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pease vs pecs". 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 #241,951 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