PâquesvspasqueWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Pâques is a name, pasque is a conjunction, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Pâques” is a name and “pasque” is a conjunction - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#7,359
“Pâques” frequency rank
#48,705
“pasque” frequency rank
56064
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Pâques pasque
Definition Fête que les chrétiens solennisent tous les ans en mémoire de la résurrection de Jésus-Christ, et qu’ils célèbrent le premier dimanche qui suit la pleine lune de l’équinoxe de printemps. Parce que.

Where the eye mixes Pâques and pasque

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

6 ch
Pâques
6 ch
pasque

Look-alike desk: Pâques vs pasque

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Pâques is \pak\ while pasque is \pas.kə\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 5 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (name vs conjunction), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56064, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Pâques is recorded at frequency rank #7,359, classified as aname, pronounced \pak\. pasque is at rank #48,705, tagged as aconj, pronounced \pas.kə\.

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 56064, this pair ranks #123,453 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Pâques vs pasque

Shared letters: epqsu. Private to "Pâques": â. Private to "pasque": a.

"Pâques" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC  ·  "pasque" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pasqueapsque · paqsue · pasqeu · pasqque · passque · pasuqe · ppasque · psaque

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Pâques" for "pasque" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Pâques" is a name and "pasque" a conjunction, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Pâques" or "pasque"?
"Pâques" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,359 in our French list, against #48,705 for "pasque". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Pâques" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pasque" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #123,453 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Pâques" and "pasque" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "parque vs pasque". 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 #123,453 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