Which to use
“passé” and “potasse” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #318
- “passé” frequency rank
- #42,536
- “potasse” frequency rank
- 42854
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | passé | potasse |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Le temps écoulé. | Potasse caustique ; matière solide, blanche, très caustique, soluble dans l’eau. Hydroxyde de potassium (KOH). |
Where the eye mixes passé and potasse
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. passé runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against potasse's 7 (CVCVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between passé and potasse
A purely visual mix-up. passé (\pa.se\) and potasse (\pɔ.tas\) 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 42854, 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\. potasse is at rank #42,536, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɔ.tas\.
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 42854, this pair ranks #222,411 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of passé vs potasse
Shared letters: aps. Private to "passé": é. Private to "potasse": eot.
"passé" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "potasse" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- potasse ← optasse · poatsse · potase · potases · potsase · pottasse · ppotasse · ptoasse
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "passé" and "potasse" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary French text, does "passé" or "potasse" show up more?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "passé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "potasse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #222,411 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "passé" and "potasse" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "potache vs potasse". 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 #222,411 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.