pervspyeWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: per is a preposition, pye is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#339
“per” frequency rank
#46,714
“pye” frequency rank
47053
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature per pye
Definition For each. Archaic spelling of pie (pastry food).

Letter map: per vs pye

Shared letters muted; letters that set per and pye apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch
per
3 ch
pye

Part-of-speech tell for per / pye

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: per is apreposition and pyeanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47053, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

per is recorded at frequency rank #339, classified as aprep, pronounced /pɜː/. pye is at rank #46,714, tagged as anoun.

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 47053, this pair ranks #206,003 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of per vs pye

Shared letters: ep. Private to "per": r. Private to "pye": y.

"per" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "pye" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "per" and "pye" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "per" is a preposition and "pye" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "per" vs "pye" - which ranks higher?
"per" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #339 in our English list, against #46,714 for "pye". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "per" and "pye".

  • Full dictionary entry for "per" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pye" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #206,003 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "per" and "pye" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "PPA vs pye". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #206,003 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