pacevspaísWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: pace is a verb, país is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“pace” is a verb and “país” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#35,175
“pace” frequency rank
#133
“país” frequency rank
35308
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pace país
Definition Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del presente de indicativo de pacer. Comunidad humana numerosa, organizada en un territorio, para defender su interés común frente a otras comunidades del mismo tipo.

Where the eye mixes pace and país

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
pace
4 ch
país

Why the eye confuses pace with país

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: pace is [ˈpase] while país is [paˈis]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35308, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pace is recorded at frequency rank #35,175, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈpase]. país is at rank #133, tagged as anoun, pronounced [paˈis].

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 35308, this pair ranks #186,776 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pace vs país

Shared letters: ap. Private to "pace": ce. Private to "país": .

"pace" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "país" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • paceapce · pacce · paec · pcae · ppace

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pace" for "país" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pace" is a verb and "país" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "pace" or "país" show up more?
"país" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #133 in our Spanish list, against #35,175 for "pace". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "pace" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "país" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #186,776 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pace" and "país" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pace vs PRC". 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 #186,776 of 323,831 scored Spanish pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list