Which to use
“past” is an adjective and “pesto” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #28,284
- “past” frequency rank
- #40,918
- “pesto” frequency rank
- 69202
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | past | pesto |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Ancien. | Sauce italienne, proche du pistou, composée de basilic, de pignons de pin, d’huile d’olive, d’ail et de fromage râpé. |
Where the eye mixes past and pesto
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. past runs 4 letters (CVCC) against pesto's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between past and pesto
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: past is \past\ while pesto is \pɛs.to\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69202, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
past is recorded at frequency rank #28,284, classified as anadj, pronounced \past\. pesto is at rank #40,918, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɛs.to\.
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 69202, this pair ranks #56,068 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of past vs pesto
Shared letters: pst. Private to "past": a. Private to "pesto": eo.
"past" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "pesto" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "past" for "pesto" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "past" or "pesto" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "past" and "pesto" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "past" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "pesto" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #56,068 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "past" and "pesto" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "peso vs pesto". 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 #56,068 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.