Which to use
“paso” and “passé” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #32,105
- “paso” frequency rank
- #318
- “passé” frequency rank
- 32423
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | paso | passé |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pasodoble. | Le temps écoulé. |
Where the eye mixes paso and passé
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. paso runs 4 letters (CVCV) against passé's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses paso with passé
A purely visual mix-up. paso (\pa.so\) 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 differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 32423, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
paso is recorded at frequency rank #32,105, classified as anoun, pronounced \pa.so\. 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 32423, this pair ranks #297,396 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of paso vs passé
Shared letters: aps. Private to "paso": o. Private to "passé": é.
"paso" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "passé" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- paso ← apso · paos · passo · ppaso · psao
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "paso" and "passé" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "paso" vs "passé" - which ranks higher?
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 "paso" 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 #297,396 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "paso" and "passé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "paso vs pio". 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 #297,396 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.