perilsvspersWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#25,169
“perils” frequency rank
#36,278
“pers” frequency rank
61447
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

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

Letter map: perils vs pers

Shared letters muted; letters that set perils and pers apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

6 ch
perils
4 ch
pers

Role in the sentence - perils and pers

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: perils is anoun and persapronoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 61447, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

perils is recorded at frequency rank #25,169, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈpɛɹɪlz/. 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 61447, this pair ranks #94,198 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of perils vs pers

Shared letters: eprs. Private to "perils": il. Private to "pers": -.

"perils" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC  ·  "pers" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • perilseprils · peirls · perills · perilss · perisl · perlis · perrils · pperils
  • perseprs · perrs · pesr · ppers

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "perils" for "pers" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "perils" is a noun and "pers" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "perils" or "pers" show up more?
"perils" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,169 in our English list, against #36,278 for "pers". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "perils" 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 #94,198 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "perils" 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 #94,198 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