pecvspersConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#47,251
“pec” frequency rank
#36,278
“pers” frequency rank
83529
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pec pers
Definition The pectoralis major muscle. That which belongs to per, theirs (singular): possessive case of per, used in place of a noun.

Letter map: pec vs pers

Shared letters muted; letters that set pec and pers apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. pec runs 3 letters (CVC) against pers's 4 (CVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
pec
4 ch
pers

Part-of-speech tell for pec / pers

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: pec is anoun and persapronoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 83529, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pec is recorded at frequency rank #47,251, classified as anoun. 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 83529, this pair ranks #13,646 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pec vs pers

Shared letters: ep. Private to "pec": c. Private to "pers": rs.

"pec" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "pers" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pers ← eprs · perrs · pesr · ppers

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "pec" and "pers" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pec" is a noun and "pers" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "pec" vs "pers" - which ranks higher?
"pers" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #36,278 in our English list, against #47,251 for "pec". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "pec" and "pers".

  • Full dictionary entry for "pec" 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 #13,646 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pec" and "pers" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pec vs PPA". 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 #13,646 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