Which to use
“pers” is a pronoun and “purse” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #36,278
- “pers” frequency rank
- #7,727
- “purse” frequency rank
- 44005
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | pers | purse |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | That which belongs to per, theirs (singular): possessive case of per, used in place of a noun. | A small bag for carrying money. |
Letter map: pers vs purse
Shared letters muted; letters that set pers and purse apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. pers runs 4 letters (CVCC) against purse's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Role in the sentence - pers and purse
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: pers is apronoun and purseanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44005, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
pers is recorded at frequency rank #36,278, classified as apron. purse is at rank #7,727, tagged as anoun, pronounced /pɜːs/.
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 44005, this pair ranks #234,605 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of pers vs purse
Shared letters: eprs. Private to "pers": -. Private to "purse": u.
"pers" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "purse" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "pers" and "purse" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "pers" or "purse"?
What to do next
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "pers" and "purse".
- Full dictionary entry for "pers" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "purse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #234,605 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "pers" and "purse" 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 #234,605 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.