packsvspacteWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#21,715
“packs” frequency rank
#5,687
“pacte” frequency rank
27402
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature packs pacte
Definition Pluriel de pack. Convention accompagnée d’actes publics qui lui donnent un caractère d’une importance primordiale.

Where the eye mixes packs and pacte

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

5 ch
packs
5 ch
pacte

Look-alike desk: packs vs pacte

A purely visual mix-up. packs (\pak\) and pacte (\pakt\) 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 27402, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

packs is recorded at frequency rank #21,715, classified as anoun, pronounced \pak\. pacte is at rank #5,687, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pakt\.

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 27402, this pair ranks #329,217 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of packs vs pacte

Shared letters: acp. Private to "packs": ks. Private to "pacte": et.

"packs" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC  ·  "pacte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • packsapcks · paccks · packks · packss · pacsk · pakcs · pcaks · ppacks
  • pacteapcte · paccte · pacet · pactte · patce · pcate · ppacte

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "packs" and "pacte" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\pak\ versus \pakt\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "packs" or "pacte" show up more?
"pacte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,687 in our French list, against #21,715 for "packs". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "packs" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pacte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #329,217 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "packs" and "pacte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "packs vs pactes". 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 #329,217 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