pacesvsplacerWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#43,583
“paces” frequency rank
#3,351
“placer” frequency rank
46934
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature paces placer
Definition Deuxième personne du singulier (tú) du présent de l’indicatif de pacer. Situer ; mettre dans un lieu.

Where the eye mixes paces and placer

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
paces
6 ch
placer

Visual trap between paces and placer

A purely visual mix-up. paces (\ˈpa.θes\) and placer (\pla.se\) 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 46934, 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\. placer is at rank #3,351, tagged as averb, pronounced \pla.se\.

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 46934, this pair ranks #190,901 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of paces vs placer

Shared letters: acep. Private to "paces": s. Private to "placer": lr.

"paces" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "placer" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pacesapces · pacces · pacess · pacse · paecs · pcaes · ppaces
  • placerlpacer · palcer · placcer · placerr · placre · plaecr · plcaer · pllacer

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "paces" and "placer" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ˈpa.θes\ versus \pla.se\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "paces" or "placer"?
"placer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,351 in our French list, against #43,583 for "paces". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "paces" and "placer" 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 "placer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #190,901 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "paces" and "placer" 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 #190,901 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