percevspercutéWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: perce is a noun, percuté is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#18,016
“perce” frequency rank
#20,812
“percuté” frequency rank
38828
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature perce percuté
Definition Outil pour percer. Participe passé masculin singulier de percuter.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set perce and percuté apart are highlighted. They share 4 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

5 ch
perce
7 ch
percuté

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: perce is \pɛʁs\ while percuté is \pɛʁ.ky.te\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 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 38828, 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\. percuté is at rank #20,812, tagged as averb, pronounced \pɛʁ.ky.te\.

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 38828, this pair ranks #252,512 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of perce vs percuté

Shared letters: cepr. Private to "perce": -. Private to "percuté": tué.

"perce" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "percuté" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

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

Frequency comparison

perce#18,016
percuté#20,812

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "perce" and "percuté" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "perce" is a noun and "percuté" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "perce" or "percuté"?
"perce" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,016 in our French list, against #20,812 for "percuté". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering perce vs percuté

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Check the role first: if you need a noun, it's “perce”; for a verb, it's “percuté”.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “perce” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list