Which to use
“purse” is a noun and “pursue” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #7,727
- “purse” frequency rank
- #4,624
- “pursue” frequency rank
- 12351
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | purse | pursue |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A small bag for carrying money. | To follow urgently, originally with intent to capture or harm; to chase. |
Where the eye mixes purse and pursue
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. purse runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against pursue's 6 (CVCCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: purse vs pursue
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: purse is /pɜːs/ while pursue is /pəˈsjuː/. 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 (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12351, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
purse is recorded at frequency rank #7,727, classified as anoun, pronounced /pɜːs/. pursue is at rank #4,624, tagged as averb, pronounced /pəˈsjuː/.
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 12351, this pair ranks #482,056 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of purse vs pursue
Shared letters: eprsu. Private to "purse": -. Private to "pursue": -.
"purse" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "pursue" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "purse" for "pursue" ever safe?
Which is more common, "purse" or "pursue"?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "purse" and "pursue" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "purse" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "pursue" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #482,056 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "purse" and "pursue" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "purist vs purse". 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 #482,056 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.