Which to use
“panse” and “passé” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #36,987
- “panse” frequency rank
- #318
- “passé” frequency rank
- 37305
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | panse | passé |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Ventre. | Le temps écoulé. |
Where the eye mixes panse and passé
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. panse and passé follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses panse with passé
A purely visual mix-up. panse (\pɑ̃s\) and passé (\pa.se\) 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 37305, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
panse is recorded at frequency rank #36,987, classified as anoun, pronounced \pɑ̃s\. passé is at rank #318, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pa.se\.
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 37305, this pair ranks #263,383 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of panse vs passé
Shared letters: aps. Private to "panse": en. Private to "passé": é.
"panse" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "passé" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- panse ← apnse · pansse · pasne · pnase · ppanse
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "panse" for "passé" ever safe?
Which is more common, "panse" or "passé"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "panse" and "passé" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "panse" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "passé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #263,383 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "panse" and "passé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "panse vs Panzer". 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 #263,383 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.