pacevspatWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“pace” and “pat” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#30,730
“pace” frequency rank
#10,372
“pat” frequency rank
41102
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pace pat
Definition Pas. Situation où un des deux joueurs, qui n’a pas son roi en échec et qui a le trait, ne peut pas jouer sans mettre le roi en prise, et qui constitue un des cas de nullité de la partie.

Where the eye mixes pace and pat

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

4 ch
pace
3 ch
pat

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. pace (\peɪs\) and pat (\pat\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41102, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pace is recorded at frequency rank #30,730, classified as anoun, pronounced \peɪs\. pat is at rank #10,372, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pat\.

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 41102, this pair ranks #235,549 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pace vs pat

Shared letters: ap. Private to "pace": ce. Private to "pat": t.

"pace" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "pat" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • paceapce · pacce · paec · pcae · ppace

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "pace" and "pat" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\peɪs\ versus \pat\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "pace" or "pat"?
"pat" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,372 in our French list, against #30,730 for "pace". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list