pegvspezWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#49,850
“peg” frequency rank
#5,028
“pez” frequency rank
54878
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature peg pez
Definition Mutación dura del sustantivo masculino beg. Cualquiera de unas 30 000 especies de animales vertebrados, caracterizados por ser los únicos adaptados a respirar agua durante todo su ciclo vital. Forman un grupo sin rigor taxonómico que comprende varios grupos evolutivos diferentes, que sólo tienen en común su adaptación al medio acuático.

Where the eye mixes peg and pez

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

3 ch
peg
3 ch
pez

Why the eye confuses peg with pez

A purely visual mix-up. peg (/ˈpeːk/) and pez ([ˈpes]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - g in “peg” becomes z in “pez”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54878, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

peg is recorded at frequency rank #49,850, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈpeːk/. pez is at rank #5,028, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈpes].

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 54878, this pair ranks #81,388 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of peg vs pez

Shared letters: ep. Private to "peg": g. Private to "pez": z.

"peg" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "pez" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "peg" for "pez" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈpeːk/ versus [ˈpes]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "peg" or "pez" show up more?
"pez" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,028 in our Spanish list, against #49,850 for "peg". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "peg" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #81,388 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "peg" and "pez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "peg vs prey". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #81,388 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