pastvspushWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: past is a adjective, push is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“past” is an adjective and “push” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#20,081
“past” frequency rank
#23,469
“push” frequency rank
43550
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature past push
Definition passado empurrar, dar empurrões, deslocar empurrando

Letter map: past vs push

Shared letters muted; letters that set past and push apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
past
4 ch
push

Role in the sentence - past and push

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: past is anadjective and pushaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43550, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

past is recorded at frequency rank #20,081, classified as anadj, pronounced /pɑːst/. push is at rank #23,469, tagged as averb.

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 43550, this pair ranks #22,064 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of past vs push

Shared letters: ps. Private to "past": at. Private to "push": hu.

"past" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "push" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pastapst · passt · pastt · pats · ppast · psat
  • pushppush · psuh · puhs · pushh · pussh · upsh

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "past" for "push" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "past" is an adjective and "push" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "past" vs "push" - which ranks higher?
"past" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,081 in our Portuguese list, against #23,469 for "push". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "past" vs "push" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "past" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "push" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #22,064 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "past" and "push" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "past vs pastar". 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 #22,064 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