pactevspâqueTell them apart

Which to use

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

#5,687
“pacte” frequency rank
#31,666
“pâque” frequency rank
37353
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pacte pâque
Definition Convention accompagnée d’actes publics qui lui donnent un caractère d’une importance primordiale. Variante orthographique de Pâque.

Where the eye mixes pacte and pâque

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

5 ch
pacte
5 ch
pâque

Visual trap between pacte and pâque

A purely visual mix-up. pacte (\pakt\) and pâque (\pɑk\) 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 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37353, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pacte is recorded at frequency rank #5,687, classified as anoun, pronounced \pakt\. pâque is at rank #31,666, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɑk\.

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 37353, this pair ranks #263,069 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pacte vs pâque

Shared letters: ep. Private to "pacte": act. Private to "pâque": quâ.

"pacte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "pâque" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pacteapcte · paccte · pacet · pactte · patce · pcate · ppacte

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pacte" for "pâque" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\pakt\ versus \pɑk\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "pacte" vs "pâque" - which ranks higher?
"pacte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,687 in our French list, against #31,666 for "pâque". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "pacte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pâque" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #263,069 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pacte" and "pâque" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pâque vs pasque". 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 #263,069 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