pavspeakWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: pa is a preposition, peak is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“pa” is a preposition and “peak” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#5,329
“pa” frequency rank
#36,150
“peak” frequency rank
41479
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pa peak
Definition para, pra pico

Letter map: pa vs peak

Shared letters muted; letters that set pa and peak apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

2 ch
pa
4 ch
peak

Part-of-speech tell for pa / peak

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: pa is apreposition and peakanoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41479, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pa is recorded at frequency rank #5,329, classified as aprep. peak is at rank #36,150, tagged as anoun, pronounced /pi:k/.

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 41479, this pair ranks #24,435 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pa vs peak

Shared letters: ap. Private to "pa": -. Private to "peak": ek.

"pa" · 2 letters · shape CV  ·  "peak" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • peakepak · paek · peakk · peka · ppeak

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pa" for "peak" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pa" is a preposition and "peak" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "pa" or "peak"?
"pa" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,329 in our Portuguese list, against #36,150 for "peak". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "pa" vs "peak" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pa" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "peak" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #24,435 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pa" and "peak" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "peach vs peak". 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 #24,435 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