pairevspartConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#3,630
“paire” frequency rank
#193
“part” frequency rank
3823
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature paire part
Definition Deux choses de même espèce, qui vont nécessairement ou ordinairement ensemble. Portion de quelque chose qui se divise entre plusieurs personnes.

Where the eye mixes paire and part

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

5 ch
paire
4 ch
part

Look-alike desk: paire vs part

A purely visual mix-up. paire (\pɛʁ\) and part (\paʁ\) 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 3823, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

paire is recorded at frequency rank #3,630, classified as anoun, pronounced \pɛʁ\. part is at rank #193, tagged as anoun, pronounced \paʁ\.

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 3823, this pair ranks #433,126 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of paire vs part

Shared letters: apr. Private to "paire": ei. Private to "part": t.

"paire" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "part" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • paireapire · paier · pairre · parie · piare · ppaire
  • partaprt · parrt · partt · patr · ppart

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "paire" and "part" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\pɛʁ\ versus \paʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "paire" or "part"?
"part" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #193 in our French list, against #3,630 for "paire". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "paire" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "part" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #433,126 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "paire" and "part" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "paire vs priée". 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 #433,126 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