stadevsstageWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#41,387
“stade” frequency rank
#837
“stage” frequency rank
42224
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature stade stage
Definition Synonym of stadion (“former Greek unit of distance”). A phase.

Where the eye mixes stade and stage

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. stade and stage follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
stade
5 ch
stage

Why the eye confuses stade with stage

A purely visual mix-up. stade (/steɪd/) and stage (/steɪd͡ʒ/) 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 a single letter - d in “stade” becomes g in “stage”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42224, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

stade is recorded at frequency rank #41,387, classified as anoun, pronounced /steɪd/. stage is at rank #837, tagged as anoun, pronounced /steɪd͡ʒ/.

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 42224, this pair ranks #251,182 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of stade vs stage

Shared letters: aest. Private to "stade": d. Private to "stage": g.

"stade" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "stage" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • stade ← satde · sstade · stadde · stdae · sttade · tsade
  • stage ← satge · sstage · staeg · stagge · stgae · sttage · tsage

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "stade" and "stage" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/steɪd/ versus /steɪd͡ʒ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "stade" vs "stage" - which ranks higher?
"stage" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #837 in our English list, against #41,387 for "stade". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "stade" and "stage" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "stade" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "stage" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #251,182 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "stade" and "stage" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "stade vs staph". 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 #251,182 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