Which to use
“passé” and “paye” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #318
- “passé” frequency rank
- #3,028
- “paye” frequency rank
- 3346
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | passé | paye |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Le temps écoulé. | Salaire ou rémunération d’un travail. |
Where the eye mixes passé and paye
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: passé vs paye
A purely visual mix-up. passé (\pa.se\) and paye (\pɛj\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 3346, 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\. paye is at rank #3,028, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɛj\.
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 3346, this pair ranks #434,250 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of passé vs paye
Shared letters: ap. Private to "passé": sé. Private to "paye": ey.
"passé" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "paye" · 4 letters · shape CVVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- paye ← apye · paey · payye · ppaye · pyae
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "passé" for "paye" ever safe?
Frequency check: "passé" vs "paye" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "passé" and "paye" 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 "paye" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #434,250 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "passé" and "paye" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "parl vs paye". 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 #434,250 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.