PearsvspersWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: Pears is a name, pers is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Pears” is a name and “pers” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#23,627
“Pears” frequency rank
#36,278
“pers” frequency rank
59905
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Pears pers
Definition A surname transferred from the given name. That which belongs to per, theirs (singular): possessive case of per, used in place of a noun.

Letter map: Pears vs pers

Shared letters muted; letters that set Pears and pers apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

5 ch
Pears
4 ch
pers

Grammar separator: Pears vs pers

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Pears is aname and persapronoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59905, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Pears is recorded at frequency rank #23,627, classified as aname. pers is at rank #36,278, tagged as apron.

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 59905, this pair ranks #103,365 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Pears vs pers

Shared letters: eprs. Private to "Pears": a. Private to "pers": -.

"Pears" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "pers" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Pearsepars · paers · pearrs · pearss · peasr · peras · ppears
  • perseprs · perrs · pesr · ppers

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Pears" for "pers" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Pears" is a name and "pers" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Pears" or "pers"?
"Pears" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,627 in our English list, against #36,278 for "pers". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "Pears" and "pers". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Pears" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pers" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #103,365 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Pears" and "pers" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pecs vs pers". 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 #103,365 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list