spacevsstadeWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: space is a adjective, stade is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“space” is an adjective and “stade” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#8,162
“space” frequency rank
#1,191
“stade” frequency rank
9353
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature space stade
Definition Spécial, étrange, qui sort de l’ordinaire. Mesure de longueur valant à peu près 180 mètres.

Where the eye mixes space and stade

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

5 ch
space
5 ch
stade

Look-alike desk: space vs stade

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: space is \spɛs\ while stade is \stad\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9353, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

space is recorded at frequency rank #8,162, classified as anadj, pronounced \spɛs\. stade is at rank #1,191, tagged as anoun, pronounced \stad\.

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 9353, this pair ranks #416,962 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of space vs stade

Shared letters: aes. Private to "space": cp. Private to "stade": dt.

"space" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "stade" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • spacepsace · sapce · spacce · spaec · spcae · sppace · sspace
  • stadesatde · sstade · stadde · staed · stdae · sttade · tsade

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "space" and "stade" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "space" is an adjective and "stade" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "space" or "stade" show up more?
"stade" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,191 in our French list, against #8,162 for "space". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "space" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "stade" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #416,962 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "space" and "stade" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "space vs stase". 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 #416,962 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