per vs PPA, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“per” is a preposition and “PPA” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#339
“per” frequency rank: #49,565
“PPA” frequency rank: 49904
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	per	PPA
Definition	For each.	Initialism of Philippine Ports Authority

Letter map: per vs PPA

Shared letters muted; letters that set per and PPA apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. per (CVC) and PPA (CCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

3 ch

per

3 ch

PPA

Grammar separator: per vs PPA

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: per is apreposition and PPAaname. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49904, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

per is recorded at frequency rank #339, classified as aprep, pronounced /pɜː/. PPA is at rank #49,565, tagged as aname.

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 49904, this pair ranks #179,203 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of per vs PPA

Shared letters: p. Private to "per": er. Private to "PPA": a.

"per" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "PPA" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "per" for "PPA" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "per" is a preposition and "PPA" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary English text, does "per" or "PPA" show up more?

"per" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #339 in our English list, against #49,565 for "PPA". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pair "per" vs "PPA" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "per" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "PPA" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #179,203 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"per" and "PPA" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "poppa vs PPA". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #179,203 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.