Which to use
“perce” and “pièce” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #18,016
- “perce” frequency rank
- #852
- “pièce” frequency rank
- 18868
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | perce | pièce |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Outil pour percer. | Chacun des éléments d’un ensemble défini. → voir pièce détachée, de toutes pièces, juger sur pièces, pièce à pièce et pièce par pièce |
Where the eye mixes perce and pièce
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: perce vs pièce
A purely visual mix-up. perce (\pɛʁs\) and pièce (\pjɛs\) 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 18868, 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\. pièce is at rank #852, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pjɛs\.
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 18868, this pair ranks #376,185 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of perce vs pièce
Shared letters: cep. Private to "perce": r. Private to "pièce": iè.
"perce" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "pièce" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- perce ← eprce · pecre · percce · perec · perrce · pperce · prece
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "perce" for "pièce" ever safe?
Which is more common, "perce" or "pièce"?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "perce" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "pièce" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #376,185 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "perce" and "pièce" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "perce vs perfs". 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 #376,185 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.