partezvspaterWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#10,370
“partez” frequency rank
#38,474
“pater” frequency rank
48844
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature partez pater
Definition Deuxième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent de partir. Prière du Notre Père.

Where the eye mixes partez and pater

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

6 ch
partez
5 ch
pater

Why the eye confuses partez with pater

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: partez is \paʁ.te\ while pater is \pa.tɛʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48844, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

partez is recorded at frequency rank #10,370, classified as averb, pronounced \paʁ.te\. pater is at rank #38,474, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pa.tɛʁ\.

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 48844, this pair ranks #175,601 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of partez vs pater

Shared letters: aeprt. Private to "partez": z. Private to "pater": -.

"partez" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "pater" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • partezaprtez · paretz · parrtez · partezz · parttez · partze · patrez · ppartez
  • paterapter · paetr · paterr · patter · ppater · ptaer

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "partez" and "pater" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "partez" is a verb and "pater" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "partez" vs "pater" - which ranks higher?
"partez" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,370 in our French list, against #38,474 for "pater". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "partez" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pater" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #175,601 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "partez" and "pater" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pater vs pètes". 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 #175,601 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