pacevspraxeWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: pace is a adverb, praxe is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#29,071
“pace” frequency rank
#25,097
“praxe” frequency rank
54168
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pace praxe
Definition em paz, pacificamente aquilo que habitualmente se faz; costume, prática, rotina

Where the eye mixes pace and praxe

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

4 ch
pace
5 ch
praxe

Why the eye confuses pace with praxe

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: pace is /ˈpa.t͡se/, /ˈpɑ.t͡sɛ/ while praxe is /ˈpɾa.ʃɨ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adverb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54168, 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/. praxe is at rank #25,097, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈpɾa.ʃɨ/.

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 54168, this pair ranks #11,484 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pace vs praxe

Shared letters: aep. Private to "pace": c. Private to "praxe": rx.

"pace" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "praxe" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • paceapce · pacce · paec · pcae · ppace
  • praxeparxe · ppraxe · praex · praxxe · prraxe · prxae · rpaxe

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pace" for "praxe" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pace" is an adverb and "praxe" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "pace" vs "praxe" - which ranks higher?
"praxe" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,097 in our Portuguese list, against #29,071 for "pace". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "pace" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "praxe" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #11,484 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pace" and "praxe" 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 #11,484 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