pacovspasConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#24,315
“paco” frequency rank
#15
“pas” frequency rank
24330
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature paco pas
Definition Minerai d’argent contenant beaucoup de fer. Mouvement que fait une personne ou un animal en mettant un pied devant l’autre pour marcher.

Where the eye mixes paco and pas

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

4 ch
paco
3 ch
pas

Look-alike desk: paco vs pas

A purely visual mix-up. paco (\pa.ko\) and pas (\pa\) 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 24330, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

paco is recorded at frequency rank #24,315, classified as anoun, pronounced \pa.ko\. pas is at rank #15, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pa\.

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 24330, this pair ranks #347,219 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of paco vs pas

Shared letters: ap. Private to "paco": co. Private to "pas": s.

"paco" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "pas" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pacoapco · pacco · paoc · pcao · ppaco

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "paco" and "pas" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\pa.ko\ versus \pa\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "paco" or "pas" show up more?
"pas" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15 in our French list, against #24,315 for "paco". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "paco" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pas" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #347,219 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "paco" and "pas" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "paco vs pio". 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 #347,219 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