Which to use
“pass” and “passée” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #9,211
- “pass” frequency rank
- #2,439
- “passée” frequency rank
- 11650
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | pass | passée |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Passe, carte d’abonnement (pour les transports en commun, les musées, etc). | Action de passer. Passage |
Where the eye mixes pass and passée
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. pass runs 4 letters (CVCC) against passée's 6 (CVCCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses pass with passée
A purely visual mix-up. pass (\pas\) and passée (\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 2 extra letter(s) - “pass” sits inside “passée”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11650, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
pass is recorded at frequency rank #9,211, classified as anoun, pronounced \pas\. 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 11650, this pair ranks #408,342 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of pass vs passée
Shared letters: aps. Private to "pass": -. Private to "passée": eé.
"pass" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "passée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- pass ← apss · ppass · psas
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "pass" and "passée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "pass" vs "passée" - 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 "pass" 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 #408,342 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "pass" and "passée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pass vs peso". 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 #408,342 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.