PACSvspavéTell them apart

Which to use

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

#29,899
“PACS” frequency rank
#10,549
“pavé” frequency rank
40448
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature PACS pavé
Definition Pacte civil de solidarité. Bloc, généralement cubique et fait de pierre dure (basalte, granit, grès, porphyre…), spécialement taillé pour confectionner une chaussée de route, de rue, ou d’un sol quelconque.

Where the eye mixes PACS and pavé

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. PACS (CVCC) and pavé (CVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
PACS
4 ch
pavé

Visual trap between PACS and pavé

A purely visual mix-up. PACS (\paks\) and pavé (\pa.ve\) 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 40448, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

PACS is recorded at frequency rank #29,899, classified as anoun, pronounced \paks\. pavé is at rank #10,549, tagged as anoun, 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 40448, this pair ranks #240,423 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of PACS vs pavé

Shared letters: ap. Private to "PACS": cs. Private to "pavé": .

"PACS" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "pavé" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • PACSapcs · paccs · pacss · pasc · pcas · ppacs

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "PACS" and "pavé" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\paks\ versus \pa.ve\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "PACS" vs "pavé" - which ranks higher?
"pavé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,549 in our French list, against #29,899 for "PACS". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "PACS" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pavé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #240,423 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "PACS" and "pavé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "PACS vs parl". 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 #240,423 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