pass

\pas\

/\pas\/ noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“pass” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #9,211) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#9,211
frequency rank, French
6,826
“P” headwords
3
tracked misspellings
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Passe, carte d’abonnement (pour les transports en commun, les musées, etc).

Corpus desk

Index FR-pass · pass · French

pass · rank #9,211 · 3 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-COMMON #9,211
  • LEN-MID 4 letters
  • VOW-1 1 vowel
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-LOW 3 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,826
  • PHOTO-FINISH paquets

Nearest frequency peer: paquets (-1 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Voisins de fréquence du confusable « pass »

Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « pass » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

pass vs PS
0% similar
pass vs pis
50% similar
pass vs PSG
0% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for pass
PropertyValue
Headwordpass
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\pas\
Letters4
Frequency rank#9,211
Misspellings tracked3
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « pass »

Cette échelle va du noyau du français courant (gauche) jusqu'à la traîne des formes rares (droite).passse place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « paquets » (#9,210), « patriotes » (#9,212), « pairs » (#9,209). Parmi 6,826 lemmes en « P », « pass » est au #9,211. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for pass is neighbouring look-alikes ("PS", "pis", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \pas\. Frequency #9,211 among 6,826 “P” headwords. Gloss: "Passe, carte d’abonnement (pour les transports en commun, les musées, etc).".

Our generated misspelling index lists 3 likely wrong-spelling variants for pass, with forms such as "apss", "ppass", and "psas". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "PS", "pis", "PSG", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is pass, spelled P-A-S-S.

Definition

  1. 1
    Passe, carte d’abonnement (pour les transports en commun, les musées, etc).

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how pass appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. La société Covid est une société de contrôle : chaque individu doit posséder un pass sanitaire pour accéder à la vie sociale élémentaire, mais il ne ressent pas cela comme une privation de liberté parce que ça lui semble rationnel, ça va de soi, c’est ainsi qu’il faut vivre.

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • apss
  • ppass
  • psas

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of pass - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.

apss2ppass1psas2
Edit distance from "pass"

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "pass"?
"pass" is spelled P-A-S-S. The IPA pronunciation is \pas\.
What does "pass" mean?
As a noun, "pass" means: Passe, carte d’abonnement (pour les transports en commun, les musées, etc).
What words are commonly confused with "pass"?
"pass" is commonly confused with "PS", "pis", "PSG". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "pass"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "pass" is \pas\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "pass" come from?
"pass" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "pass", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

ping#9,214nues#9,205Mons#9,199lots#9,192

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list