Which to use
“passe” and “pastel” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #2,337
- “passe” frequency rank
- #17,097
- “pastel” frequency rank
- 19434
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | passe | pastel |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | licença, permissão | massa de farinha, cozida no forno ou frita, e recheada de carne, peixe ou doce, etc |
Where the eye mixes passe and pastel
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. passe runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against pastel's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between passe and pastel
A purely visual mix-up. passe (/ˈpa.sɨ/) and pastel (/pɐʃ.ˈtɛɫ/) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19434, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
passe is recorded at frequency rank #2,337, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈpa.sɨ/. pastel is at rank #17,097, tagged as anoun, pronounced /pɐʃ.ˈtɛɫ/.
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 19434, this pair ranks #51,274 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of passe vs pastel
Shared letters: aeps. Private to "passe": -. Private to "pastel": lt.
"passe" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "pastel" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "passe" for "pastel" ever safe?
Frequency check: "passe" vs "pastel" - which ranks higher?
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 "passe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "pastel" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #51,274 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "passe" and "pastel" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pastar vs pastel". 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 #51,274 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.