Which to use
“personal” is an adjective and “persons” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #640
- “personal” frequency rank
- #3,443
- “persons” frequency rank
- 4083
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | personal | persons |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pertaining to persons (human beings as opposed to things or animals). | plural of person, used to refer to them individually, rather than as a group; contrast people |
Where the eye mixes personal and persons
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between personal and persons
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: personal is /ˈpɜː.sə.nəl/ while persons is /ˈpɜː.sənz/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4083, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
personal is recorded at frequency rank #640, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈpɜː.sə.nəl/. persons is at rank #3,443, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈpɜː.sənz/.
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 4083, this pair ranks #520,041 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of personal vs persons
Shared letters: enoprs. Private to "personal": al. Private to "persons": -.
"personal" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC · "persons" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "personal" for "persons" ever safe?
Frequency check: "personal" vs "persons" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "personal" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "persons" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #520,041 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "personal" and "persons" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "personals vs persons". 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 #520,041 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.