Which to use
“passée” and “pause” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #2,439
- “passée” frequency rank
- #2,730
- “pause” frequency rank
- 5169
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | passée | pause |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Action de passer. Passage | Suspension ou interruption momentanée d’une action. |
Where the eye mixes passée and pause
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: passée vs pause
A purely visual mix-up. passée (\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 differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5169, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
passée is recorded at frequency rank #2,439, 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 5169, this pair ranks #429,725 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of passée vs pause
Shared letters: aeps. Private to "passée": é. Private to "pause": u.
"passée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV · "pause" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- pause ← apuse · pasue · paues · pausse · ppause · puase
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "passée" for "pause" ever safe?
Frequency check: "passée" vs "pause" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "passée" 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 #429,725 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "passée" 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 #429,725 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.