perse
/pɜːs/
"perse" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“perse” is uncommon English (frequency #71,787 among 4,417 “P” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #71,787
- frequency rank, English
- 4,417
- “P” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A very dark (almost black) purple or blue-gray colour.
Corpus desk
Index EN-perse · perse · English
perse · rank #71,787 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #71,787
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,417
- PHOTO-FINISH Petronius
Nearest frequency peer: Petronius (+1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Long-tail ranks near “perse”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- permeating
permeating
28,216 corpus weight
- perse
perse
28,214 corpus weight
- Petronius
Petronius
28,213 corpus weight
- Pfeifer
Pfeifer
28,212 corpus weight
- pfp
pfp
28,211 corpus weight
- phthalate
phthalate
28,210 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “perse” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | perse |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /pɜːs/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #71,787 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “perse” in English
Rare enough to double-check
perse is uncommon English at frequency #71,787 among 4,417 “P” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /pɜːs/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
No generated misspelling entries exist for perse in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. Our dataset records no confusable match here, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English pers, from Old French, from Medieval Latin persus, back-formed from Persicus (“Persian”), from Ancient Greek Περσικός (Persikós). Compare peach. The correct English form is perse, spelled P-E-R-S-E.
Definition
- 1A very dark (almost black) purple or blue-gray colour.
- 2A cloth of this colour.
Etymology
From Middle English pers, from Old French, from Medieval Latin persus, back-formed from Persicus (“Persian”), from Ancient Greek Περσικός (Persikós). Compare peach.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "perse", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).