pausevspavieWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“pause” and “pavie” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#2,730
“pause” frequency rank
#32,518
“pavie” frequency rank
35248
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pause pavie
Definition Suspension ou interruption momentanée d’une action. Sorte de pêche dont la chair est adhérente au noyau.

Where the eye mixes pause and pavie

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
pause
5 ch
pavie

Visual trap between pause and pavie

A purely visual mix-up. pause (\poz\) and pavie (\pa.vi\) 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 35248, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pause is recorded at frequency rank #2,730, classified as anoun, pronounced \poz\. pavie is at rank #32,518, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pa.vi\.

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 35248, this pair ranks #278,102 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pause vs pavie

Shared letters: aep. Private to "pause": su. Private to "pavie": iv.

"pause" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "pavie" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pauseapuse · pasue · paues · pausse · ppause · puase
  • pavieapvie · paive · pavei · pavvie · ppavie · pvaie

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pause" for "pavie" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\poz\ versus \pa.vi\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "pause" vs "pavie" - which ranks higher?
"pause" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,730 in our French list, against #32,518 for "pavie". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pause" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pavie" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #278,102 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pause" and "pavie" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "palin vs pavie". 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 #278,102 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list