persvsperuseTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#36,278
“pers” frequency rank
#40,385
“peruse” frequency rank
76663
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pers peruse
Definition That which belongs to per, theirs (singular): possessive case of per, used in place of a noun. To examine or consider with care.

Letter map: pers vs peruse

Shared letters muted; letters that set pers and peruse apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. pers runs 4 letters (CVCC) against peruse's 6 (CVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
pers
6 ch
peruse

Part-of-speech tell for pers / peruse

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: pers is apronoun and peruseaverb. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 76663, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pers is recorded at frequency rank #36,278, classified as apron. peruse is at rank #40,385, tagged as averb, pronounced /pəˈɹuːz/.

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 76663, this pair ranks #29,466 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pers vs peruse

Shared letters: eprs. Private to "pers": -. Private to "peruse": u.

"pers" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "peruse" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pers ← eprs · perrs · pesr · ppers
  • peruse ← epruse · perruse · persue · perues · perusse · peurse · pperuse · preuse

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "pers" and "peruse" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pers" is a pronoun and "peruse" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "pers" vs "peruse" - which ranks higher?
"pers" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #36,278 in our English list, against #40,385 for "peruse". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "pers" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "peruse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #29,466 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pers" and "peruse" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "peruse vs prude". 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 #29,466 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