pacevspasaTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#35,175
“pace” frequency rank
#270
“pasa” frequency rank
35445
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pace pasa
Definition Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del presente de indicativo de pacer. Uva seca, deshidratada parcialmente, sea de forma natural o por acción humana al cocerla al calor.

Where the eye mixes pace and pasa

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

4 ch
pace
4 ch
pasa

Look-alike desk: pace vs pasa

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: pace is [ˈpase] while pasa is [ˈpasa]. 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 35445, 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]. pasa is at rank #270, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈpasa].

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 35445, this pair ranks #186,062 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pace vs pasa

Shared letters: ap. Private to "pace": ce. Private to "pasa": s.

"pace" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "pasa" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • paceapce · pacce · paec · pcae · ppace
  • pasaapsa · paas · passa · ppasa · psaa

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "pace" and "pasa" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pace" is a verb and "pasa" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "pace" vs "pasa" - which ranks higher?
"pasa" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #270 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 "pasa" 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 "pasa" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #186,062 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pace" and "pasa" 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 #186,062 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