paiesvspayéesWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: paies is a noun, payées is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“paies” is a noun and “payées” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#19,619
“paies” frequency rank
#12,016
“payées” frequency rank
31635
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature paies payées
Definition Pluriel de paie. Féminin pluriel de payé.

Where the eye mixes paies and payées

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

5 ch
paies
6 ch
payées

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: paies is \pɛ\ while payées is \pɛ.je\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31635, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

paies is recorded at frequency rank #19,619, classified as anoun, pronounced \pɛ\. payées is at rank #12,016, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pɛ.je\.

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 31635, this pair ranks #302,560 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of paies vs payées

Shared letters: aeps. Private to "paies": i. Private to "payées": .

"paies" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC  ·  "payées" · 6 letters · shape CVVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • paiesapies · paeis · paiess · paise · piaes · ppaies

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "paies" and "payées" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "paies" is a noun and "payées" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "paies" or "payées"?
"payées" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,016 in our French list, against #19,619 for "paies". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list