parsvspastConfusable pair

Quick tell: pars is a noun, past is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“pars” is a noun and “past” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#44,903
“pars” frequency rank
#38,289
“past” frequency rank
83192
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pars past
Definition Una de las porciones (iguales o no) en las que se pueda dividir una cosa (material o no), parte, porción, trozo, pedazo, pieza, etc. Pasado, que ocurrió en el pasado.

Where the eye mixes pars and past

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. pars and past follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
pars
4 ch
past

Why the eye confuses pars with past

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: pars is /ˈpars/ while past is /pɑːst/. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 83192, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pars is recorded at frequency rank #44,903, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈpars/. past is at rank #38,289, tagged as anadj, pronounced /pɑːst/.

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 83192, this pair ranks #8,381 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pars vs past

Shared letters: aps. Private to "pars": r. Private to "past": t.

"pars" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "past" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pars ← aprs · parrs · parss · pasr · ppars · pras
  • past ← apst · passt · pastt · pats · ppast · psat

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pars" for "past" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pars" is a noun and "past" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "pars" vs "past" - which ranks higher?
"past" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #38,289 in our Spanish list, against #44,903 for "pars". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "pars" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "past" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #8,381 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pars" and "past" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pars 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 #8,381 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