percevspercésWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: perce is a noun, percés is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“perce” is a noun and “percés” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#18,016
“perce” frequency rank
#34,666
“percés” frequency rank
52682
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature perce percés
Definition Outil pour percer. Masculin pluriel de percé.

Where the eye mixes perce and percés

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
perce
6 ch
percés

Look-alike desk: perce vs percés

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: perce is \pɛʁs\ while percés is \pɛʁ.se\. 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 adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52682, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

perce is recorded at frequency rank #18,016, classified as anoun, pronounced \pɛʁs\. percés is at rank #34,666, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pɛʁ.se\.

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 52682, this pair ranks #145,996 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of perce vs percés

Shared letters: cepr. Private to "perce": -. Private to "percés": .

"perce" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "percés" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • perceeprce · pecre · percce · perec · perrce · pperce · prece

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "perce" and "percés" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "perce" is a noun and "percés" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "perce" or "percés"?
"perce" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,016 in our French list, against #34,666 for "percés". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "perce" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "percés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #145,996 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "perce" and "percés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "percés vs pètes". 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 #145,996 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