stasevsStasiWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#49,372
“stase” frequency rank
#36,602
“Stasi” frequency rank
85974
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature stase Stasi
Definition Stabilité, constance dans le temps, immobilité, passivité ; absence de changement, de mouvement, d’activité (voir aussi l’adjectif statique). Police politique et service de renseignements durant la période communiste en Allemagne de l’Est.

Where the eye mixes stase and Stasi

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. stase and Stasi follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
stase
5 ch
Stasi

Why the eye confuses stase with Stasi

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: stase is \staz\ while Stasi is \sta.zi\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - e in “stase” becomes i in “Stasi”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 85974, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

stase is recorded at frequency rank #49,372, classified as anoun, pronounced \staz\. Stasi is at rank #36,602, tagged as aname, pronounced \sta.zi\.

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 85974, this pair ranks #10,443 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of stase vs Stasi

Shared letters: ast. Private to "stase": e. Private to "Stasi": i.

"stase" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "Stasi" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • stase ← satse · sstase · staes · stasse · stsae · sttase
  • Stasi ← satsi · sstasi · stais · stassi · stsai · sttasi · tsasi

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "stase" for "Stasi" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "stase" is a noun and "Stasi" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "stase" or "Stasi" show up more?
"Stasi" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #36,602 in our French list, against #49,372 for "stase". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "stase" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Stasi" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #10,443 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "stase" and "Stasi" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "SSE 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 #10,443 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