pasovsproWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#32,105
“paso” frequency rank
#1,039
“pro” frequency rank
33144
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature paso pro
Definition Pasodoble. Professionnel, professionnelle.

Where the eye mixes paso and pro

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
paso
3 ch
pro

Visual trap between paso and pro

A purely visual mix-up. paso (\pa.so\) and pro (\pʁo\) 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 33144, 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\. pro is at rank #1,039, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pʁo\.

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 33144, this pair ranks #292,586 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of paso vs pro

Shared letters: op. Private to "paso": as. Private to "pro": r.

"paso" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "pro" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pasoapso · paos · passo · ppaso · psao

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "paso" for "pro" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\pa.so\ versus \pʁo\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "paso" or "pro"?
"pro" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,039 in our French list, against #32,105 for "paso". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "paso" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pro" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #292,586 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "paso" and "pro" 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 #292,586 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