pacesvsparusTell them apart

Which to use

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

#43,583
“paces” frequency rank
#17,505
“parus” frequency rank
61088
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature paces parus
Definition Deuxième personne du singulier (tú) du présent de l’indicatif de pacer. Participe passé masculin pluriel de paraître.

Where the eye mixes paces and parus

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

5 ch
paces
5 ch
parus

Look-alike desk: paces vs parus

A purely visual mix-up. paces (\ˈpa.θes\) and parus (\pa.ʁy\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 61088, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

paces is recorded at frequency rank #43,583, classified as averb, pronounced \ˈpa.θes\. parus is at rank #17,505, tagged as averb, pronounced \pa.ʁy\.

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 61088, this pair ranks #94,132 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of paces vs parus

Shared letters: aps. Private to "paces": ce. Private to "parus": ru.

"paces" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "parus" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • paces ← apces · pacces · pacess · pacse · paecs · pcaes · ppaces
  • parus ← aprus · parrus · parsu · paruss · paurs · pparus · praus

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "paces" and "parus" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ˈpa.θes\ versus \pa.ʁy\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "paces" or "parus" show up more?
"parus" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,505 in our French list, against #43,583 for "paces". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "paces" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "parus" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #94,132 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "paces" and "parus" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "paces vs palaces". 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 #94,132 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list