palacevspoliceWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“palace” and “police” are a confusable Spanish pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#24,259
“palace” frequency rank
#32,809
“police” frequency rank
57068
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature palace police
Definition Palacio. Policía.

Where the eye mixes palace and police

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
palace
6 ch
police

Look-alike desk: palace vs police

A purely visual mix-up. palace (/ˈpæl.ɪs/) and police (/pəˈliːs/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57068, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

palace is recorded at frequency rank #24,259, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈpæl.ɪs/. police is at rank #32,809, tagged as anoun, pronounced /pəˈliːs/.

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 57068, this pair ranks #71,996 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of palace vs police

Shared letters: celp. Private to "palace": a. Private to "police": io.

"palace" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "police" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • palaceaplace · paalce · palacce · palaec · palase · palcae · pallace · plaace
  • policeoplice · ploice · poilce · polcie · policce · poliec · polise · pollice

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "palace" and "police" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ˈpæl.ɪs/ versus /pəˈliːs/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "palace" or "police"?
"palace" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,259 in our Spanish list, against #32,809 for "police". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "palace" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "police" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #71,996 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "palace" and "police" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "palace vs parce". 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 #71,996 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