péagevsPégaseWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: péage is a noun, Pégase is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“péage” is a noun and “Pégase” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#13,238
“péage” frequency rank
#35,226
“Pégase” frequency rank
48464
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature péage Pégase
Definition Droit qui se lève sur les personnes, les animaux, les marchandises, pour leur passage sur un chemin, sur un pont, sur une rivière, etc. Cheval ailé fabuleux auquel les anciens poètes ont donné des ailes et qui, selon eux, fit jaillir d’un coup de pied les eaux de l’Hippocrène.

Where the eye mixes péage and Pégase

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. péage runs 5 letters (CVVCV) against Pégase's 6 (CVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
péage
6 ch
Pégase

Why the eye confuses péage with Pégase

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: péage is \pe.aʒ\ while Pégase is \pe.ɡaz\. 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 (noun vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48464, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

péage is recorded at frequency rank #13,238, classified as anoun, pronounced \pe.aʒ\. Pégase is at rank #35,226, tagged as aname, pronounced \pe.ɡaz\.

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 48464, this pair ranks #178,702 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of péage vs Pégase

Shared letters: aegpé. Private to "péage": -. Private to "Pégase": s.

"péage" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "Pégase" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "péage" and "Pégase" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "péage" is a noun and "Pégase" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "péage" or "Pégase" show up more?
"péage" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,238 in our French list, against #35,226 for "Pégase". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "péage" and "Pégase" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "péage" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Pégase" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #178,702 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "péage" and "Pégase" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Pégase vs pègre". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #178,702 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