Which to use
“passé” and “passive” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #318
- “passé” frequency rank
- #13,858
- “passive” frequency rank
- 14176
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | passé | passive |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Le temps écoulé. | Celle qui, dans le coït, est la partenaire réceptive |
Where the eye mixes passé and passive
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between passé and passive
A purely visual mix-up. passé (\pa.se\) and passive (\pa.siv\) 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 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14176, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
passé is recorded at frequency rank #318, classified as anoun, pronounced \pa.se\. passive is at rank #13,858, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pa.siv\.
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 14176, this pair ranks #397,831 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of passé vs passive
Shared letters: aps. Private to "passé": é. Private to "passive": eiv.
"passé" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "passive" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- passive ← apssive · pasisve · pasive · passiev · passivve · passvie · ppassive · psasive
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "passé" and "passive" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "passé" or "passive"?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "passé" and "passive" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "passé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "passive" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #397,831 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "passé" and "passive" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "passive vs passives". 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 #397,831 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.