gagevsgazeTell them apart

Which to use

“gage” and “gaze” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#40,149
“gage” frequency rank
#42,478
“gaze” frequency rank
82627
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gage gaze
Definition penhor tecido leve e transparente

Where the eye mixes gage and gaze

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. gage and gaze follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
gage
4 ch
gaze

Visual trap between gage and gaze

A purely visual mix-up. gage (\ɡaʒ\) and gaze (/ˈɡa.zɨ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - g in “gage” becomes z in “gaze”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 82627, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gage is recorded at frequency rank #40,149, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɡaʒ\. gaze is at rank #42,478, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈɡa.zɨ/.

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 82627, this pair ranks #1,009 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of gage vs gaze

Shared letters: aeg. Private to "gage": -. Private to "gaze": z.

"gage" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "gaze" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • gage ← agge · gaeg · gagge · ggae · ggage
  • gaze ← agze · gaez · gazze · ggaze · gzae

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "gage" for "gaze" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ɡaʒ\ versus /ˈɡa.zɨ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "gage" or "gaze"?
"gage" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #40,149 in our Portuguese list, against #42,478 for "gaze". 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 "gage" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "gaze" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,009 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "gage" and "gaze" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gage vs giga". 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 #1,009 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list