panservspasséeTell them apart

Quick tell: panser is a verb, passée is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“panser” is a verb and “passée” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#40,408
“panser” frequency rank
#2,439
“passée” frequency rank
42847
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature panser passée
Definition Soigner une plaie ou une blessure ; lui faire un pansement. Action de passer. Passage

Where the eye mixes panser and passée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. panser (CVCCVC) and passée (CVCCVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
panser
6 ch
passée

Visual trap between panser and passée

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: panser is \pɑ̃.se\ while passée is \pa.se\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42847, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

panser is recorded at frequency rank #40,408, classified as averb, pronounced \pɑ̃.se\. passée is at rank #2,439, 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 42847, this pair ranks #222,481 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of panser vs passée

Shared letters: aeps. Private to "panser": nr. Private to "passée": é.

"panser" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "passée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • panser ← apnser · panesr · pannser · panserr · pansre · pansser · pasner · pnaser

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "panser" and "passée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "panser" is a verb and "passée" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "panser" vs "passée" - which ranks higher?
"passée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,439 in our French list, against #40,408 for "panser". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "panser" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "passée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #222,481 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "panser" and "passée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "panser 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 #222,481 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