Which to use
“passé” and “pause” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #318
- “passé” frequency rank
- #2,730
- “pause” frequency rank
- 3048
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | passé | pause |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Le temps écoulé. | Suspension ou interruption momentanée d’une action. |
Where the eye mixes passé and pause
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between passé and pause
A purely visual mix-up. passé (\pa.se\) and pause (\poz\) 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 3048, 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\. pause is at rank #2,730, tagged as anoun, pronounced \poz\.
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 3048, this pair ranks #434,909 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of passé vs pause
Shared letters: aps. Private to "passé": é. Private to "pause": eu.
"passé" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "pause" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- pause ← apuse · pasue · paues · pausse · ppause · puase
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "passé" and "pause" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "passé" or "pause" show up more?
Useful next steps
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "passé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "pause" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #434,909 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "passé" and "pause" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pause vs prude". 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 #434,909 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.