passvspepsWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#9,211
“pass” frequency rank
#37,474
“peps” frequency rank
46685
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pass peps
Definition Passe, carte d’abonnement (pour les transports en commun, les musées, etc). Énergie, entrain, vigueur, dynamisme, punch, tonus.

Where the eye mixes pass and peps

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

4 ch
pass
4 ch
peps

Why the eye confuses pass with peps

A purely visual mix-up. pass (\pas\) and peps (\pɛps\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46685, 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\. peps is at rank #37,474, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɛps\.

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 46685, this pair ranks #192,942 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pass vs peps

Shared letters: ps. Private to "pass": a. Private to "peps": e.

"pass" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "peps" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • passapss · ppass · psas
  • pepsepps · pepps · pepss · pesp · ppeps · ppes

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "pass" and "peps" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\pas\ versus \pɛps\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "pass" or "peps"?
"pass" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,211 in our French list, against #37,474 for "peps". 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 "pass" and "peps" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pass" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "peps" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #192,942 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pass" and "peps" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "peps vs prep". 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 #192,942 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