Which to use
“passable” and “passible” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #41,950
- “passable” frequency rank
- #17,506
- “passible” frequency rank
- 59456
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | passable | passible |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qui peut passer, qui peut être admis, comme n’étant pas mauvais dans son genre. | Qui peut subir, qui a mérité de subir une peine. |
Where the eye mixes passable and passible
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: passable vs passible
A purely visual mix-up. passable (\pa.sabl\) and passible (\pa.sibl\) 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 a single letter - a in “passable” becomes i in “passible”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59456, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
passable is recorded at frequency rank #41,950, classified as anadj, pronounced \pa.sabl\. passible is at rank #17,506, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pa.sibl\.
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 59456, this pair ranks #103,034 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of passable vs passible
Shared letters: abelps. Private to "passable": -. Private to "passible": i.
"passable" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCCV · "passible" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "passable" for "passible" ever safe?
Frequency check: "passable" vs "passible" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "passable" and "passible" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "passable" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "passible" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #103,034 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "passable" and "passible" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "passable vs payable". 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 #103,034 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.