percevspeséeConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#18,016
“perce” frequency rank
#33,826
“pesée” frequency rank
51842
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature perce pesée
Definition Outil pour percer. Action de peser.

Where the eye mixes perce and pesée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
perce
5 ch
pesée

Why the eye confuses perce with pesée

A purely visual mix-up. perce (\pɛʁs\) and pesée (\pə.ze\) 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 51842, 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\. pesée is at rank #33,826, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pə.ze\.

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 51842, this pair ranks #152,028 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of perce vs pesée

Shared letters: ep. Private to "perce": cr. Private to "pesée": .

"perce" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "pesée" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "perce" for "pesée" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\pɛʁs\ versus \pə.ze\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "perce" or "pesée"?
"perce" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,016 in our French list, against #33,826 for "pesée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "perce" and "pesée" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "perce" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pesée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #152,028 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "perce" and "pesée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "peep vs pesée". 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 #152,028 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