pays

/\pe.i\/ noun

Letters

4 characters

Frequency Rank

#137

in French word usage

Misspellings

6

tracked variants

Confusables

20

similar word pairs

pays is aFrenchnoun. It means: Territoire d’une nation. Pronounced \pe.i\. It ranks #137 in French word frequency. Often confused with PS and Py.

Key facts for pays
PropertyValue
Headwordpays
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\pe.i\
Letters4
Frequency rank#137
Misspellings tracked6
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of pays in French word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for pays is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \pe.i\. Corpus data places it at rank #137 in overall French word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 14 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for pays, with forms such as "apys", "pasy", and "payss". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "PS", "Py", "pis", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is pays, spelled P-A-Y-S, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Territoire d’une nation.
  2. 2
    Patrie.
  3. 3
    Province natale.
  4. 4
    Fraction cohérente du territoire national.
  5. 5
    Village duquel on est issu.
  6. 6
    Nation, État.
  7. 7
    Population d’une contrée.
  8. 8
    Région géographique.
  9. 9
    Zone géographique, du point de vue du climat, de la fertilité, etc.
  10. 10
    Contrée, région ou terre productrice.
  11. 11
    Terroir, campagne.
  12. 12
    Terrain.
  13. 13
    Monde imaginaire.
  14. 14
    Domaine, monde, univers.

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: apys,pasy,payss,payys,ppays,pyas

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for pays

Misspelling Variants of "pays"

apys4pasy4payss5payys5ppays5pyas4
Misspelling Variants of "pays"

Frequency rank: #137 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "pays"?
"pays" is spelled P-A-Y-S. The IPA pronunciation is \pe.i\.
What does "pays" mean?
As a noun, "pays" means: Territoire d’une nation.
What words are commonly confused with "pays"?
"pays" is commonly confused with "PS", "Py", "pis". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "pays"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "pays" is \pe.i\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "pays" come from?
"pays" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
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.

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter P in our French index:

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.