Which to use
“penis” is a noun and “pers” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #6,605
- “penis” frequency rank
- #36,278
- “pers” frequency rank
- 42883
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | penis | pers |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | The male erectile reproductive organ used for sexual intercourse that in the human male and other placental mammals is also used for urination; the tubular portion of the external male genitalia (excluding the scrotum). | That which belongs to per, theirs (singular): possessive case of per, used in place of a noun. |
Letter map: penis vs pers
Shared letters muted; letters that set penis and pers apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. penis runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against pers's 4 (CVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Part-of-speech tell for penis / pers
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: penis is anoun and persapronoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42883, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
penis is recorded at frequency rank #6,605, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈpiː.nɪs/. 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 42883, this pair ranks #245,221 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of penis vs pers
Shared letters: eps. Private to "penis": in. Private to "pers": r.
"penis" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "pers" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "penis" for "pers" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "penis" or "pers" show up more?
What to do next
Pair "penis" vs "pers" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "penis" 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 #245,221 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "penis" 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 #245,221 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.