padrevspègreWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“padre” and “pègre” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#26,820
“padre” frequency rank
#41,988
“pègre” frequency rank
68808
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature padre pègre
Definition Aumônier militaire. Catégorie des gens sans aveu qui vivent de friponnerie ou d’escroquerie.

Where the eye mixes padre and pègre

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. padre and pègre follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
padre
5 ch
pègre

Look-alike desk: padre vs pègre

A purely visual mix-up. padre (\pa.dʁe\) and pègre (\pɛɡʁ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68808, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

padre is recorded at frequency rank #26,820, classified as anoun, pronounced \pa.dʁe\. pègre is at rank #41,988, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɛɡʁ\.

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 68808, this pair ranks #57,603 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of padre vs pègre

Shared letters: epr. Private to "padre": ad. Private to "pègre": gè.

"padre" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "pègre" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • padre ← apdre · paddre · pader · padrre · parde · pdare · ppadre

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "padre" and "pègre" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\pa.dʁe\ versus \pɛɡʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "padre" vs "pègre" - which ranks higher?
"padre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,820 in our French list, against #41,988 for "pègre". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "padre" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pègre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #57,603 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "padre" and "pègre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pègre vs Perl". 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 #57,603 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list