pace vs pai, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“pace” is an adverb and “pai” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#29,071
“pace” frequency rank: #240
“pai” frequency rank: 29311
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	pace	pai
Definition	em paz, pacificamente	homem que tem filhos, naturais ou adotivos

Letter map: pace vs pai

Shared letters muted; letters that set pace and pai apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch

pace

3 ch

pai

Part-of-speech tell for pace / pai

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: pace is anadverb and paianoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29311, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pace is recorded at frequency rank #29,071, classified as anadv, pronounced /ˈpa.t͡se/, /ˈpɑ.t͡sɛ/. pai is at rank #240, tagged as anoun.

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 29311, this pair ranks #39,368 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pace vs pai

Shared letters: ap. Private to "pace": ce. Private to "pai": i.

"pace" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "pai" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

pace ← apce · pacce · paec · pcae · ppace

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pace" for "pai" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pace" is an adverb and "pai" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "pace" or "pai" show up more?

"pai" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #240 in our Portuguese list, against #29,071 for "pace". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

You've compared "pace" and "pai". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "pace" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "pai" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #39,368 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"pace" and "pai" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pace vs pale". 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 #39,368 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.