pers vs peruse, What's the Difference?

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.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set pers and peruse apart are highlighted. They share 4 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

4 ch

pers

6 ch

peruse

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

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

Frequency comparison

pers#36,278

peruse#40,385

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "pers" and "peruse" be used interchangeably?

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.

Which is more common, "pers" or "peruse"?

"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.

Remembering pers vs peruse

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

Check the role first: if you need a pronoun, it's “pers”; for a verb, it's “peruse”.
See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “pers” entry
Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable