pansevspausesConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#36,987
“panse” frequency rank
#16,697
“pauses” frequency rank
53684
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature panse pauses
Definition Ventre. Pluriel de pause.

Where the eye mixes panse and pauses

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. panse runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against pauses's 6 (CVVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
panse
6 ch
pauses

Visual trap between panse and pauses

A purely visual mix-up. panse (\pɑ̃s\) and pauses (\poz\) 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 53684, 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\. pauses is at rank #16,697, tagged as anoun, pronounced \poz\.

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 53684, this pair ranks #139,115 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of panse vs pauses

Shared letters: aeps. Private to "panse": n. Private to "pauses": u.

"panse" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "pauses" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • panse ← apnse · pansse · pasne · pnase · ppanse
  • pauses ← apuses · pasues · pauess · pausess · pausses · ppauses · puases

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "panse" for "pauses" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\pɑ̃s\ versus \poz\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "panse" vs "pauses" - which ranks higher?
"pauses" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,697 in our French list, against #36,987 for "panse". 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 "panse" and "pauses" 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 "pauses" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #139,115 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "panse" and "pauses" 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 #139,115 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