pecsvspersTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#49,538
“pecs” frequency rank
#36,278
“pers” frequency rank
85816
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

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

Letter map: pecs vs pers

Shared letters muted; letters that set pecs and pers apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. pecs and pers follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
pecs
4 ch
pers

Grammar separator: pecs vs pers

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: pecs is anoun and persapronoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - c in “pecs” becomes r in “pers”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 85816, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pecs is recorded at frequency rank #49,538, classified as anoun, pronounced /pɛks/. 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 85816, this pair ranks #9,820 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pecs vs pers

Shared letters: eps. Private to "pecs": c. Private to "pers": r.

"pecs" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "pers" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pecs ← epcs · pces · peccs · pecss · pesc · ppecs
  • pers ← eprs · perrs · pesr · ppers

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pecs" for "pers" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pecs" is a noun and "pers" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "pecs" or "pers" show up more?
"pers" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #36,278 in our English list, against #49,538 for "pecs". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "pecs" vs "pers" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pecs" 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 #9,820 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pecs" and "pers" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "peasy vs pecs". 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 #9,820 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