persvspinsWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#36,278
“pers” frequency rank
#9,648
“pins” frequency rank
45926
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

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

Letter map: pers vs pins

Shared letters muted; letters that set pers and pins apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. pers and pins follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
pers
4 ch
pins

Part-of-speech tell for pers / pins

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: pers is apronoun and pinsanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45926, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pers is recorded at frequency rank #36,278, classified as apron. pins is at rank #9,648, tagged as anoun, pronounced /pɪnz/.

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 45926, this pair ranks #216,626 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pers vs pins

Shared letters: ps. Private to "pers": er. Private to "pins": in.

"pers" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "pins" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • perseprs · perrs · pesr · ppers
  • pinsipns · pinns · pinss · pisn · pnis · ppins

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pers" for "pins" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pers" is a pronoun and "pins" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "pers" vs "pins" - which ranks higher?
"pins" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,648 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.

Useful next steps

You've compared "pers" and "pins". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pers" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pins" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #216,626 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pers" and "pins" 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 #216,626 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