pacevspalaceWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#35,175
“pace” frequency rank
#24,259
“palace” frequency rank
59434
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pace palace
Definition Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del presente de indicativo de pacer. Palacio.

Where the eye mixes pace and palace

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. pace runs 4 letters (CVCV) against palace's 6 (CVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
pace
6 ch
palace

Why the eye confuses pace with palace

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: pace is [ˈpase] while palace is /ˈpæl.ɪs/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59434, 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]. palace is at rank #24,259, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈpæl.ɪs/.

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 59434, this pair ranks #62,628 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pace vs palace

Shared letters: acep. Private to "pace": -. Private to "palace": l.

"pace" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "palace" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pace ← apce · pacce · paec · pcae · ppace
  • palace ← aplace · paalce · palacce · palaec · palase · palcae · pallace · plaace

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "pace" and "palace" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pace" is a verb and "palace" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "pace" or "palace" show up more?
"palace" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,259 in our Spanish list, against #35,175 for "pace". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pace" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "palace" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #62,628 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pace" and "palace" 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 #62,628 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