pacesvspavésTell them apart

Quick tell: paces is a verb, pavés is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“paces” is a verb and “pavés” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#43,583
“paces” frequency rank
#14,754
“pavés” frequency rank
58337
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature paces pavés
Definition Deuxième personne du singulier (tú) du présent de l’indicatif de pacer. Masculin pluriel de pavé.

Where the eye mixes paces and pavés

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
paces
5 ch
pavés

Look-alike desk: paces vs pavés

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: paces is \ˈpa.θes\ while pavés is \pa.ve\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58337, 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\. pavés is at rank #14,754, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pa.ve\.

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 58337, this pair ranks #109,673 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of paces vs pavés

Shared letters: aps. Private to "paces": ce. Private to "pavés": .

"paces" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "pavés" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pacesapces · pacces · pacess · pacse · paecs · pcaes · ppaces

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "paces" and "pavés" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "paces" is a verb and "pavés" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "paces" or "pavés"?
"pavés" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,754 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.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "paces" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pavés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #109,673 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "paces" and "pavés" 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 #109,673 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