Which to use
“perce” and “porte” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #18,016
- “perce” frequency rank
- #284
- “porte” frequency rank
- 18300
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | perce | porte |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Outil pour percer. | Ouverture battante dans un mur qui permet d’entrer ou sortir d’un endroit. |
Where the eye mixes perce and porte
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses perce with porte
A purely visual mix-up. perce (\pɛʁs\) and porte (\pɔʁt\) 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 18300, 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\. porte is at rank #284, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɔʁt\.
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 18300, this pair ranks #379,034 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of perce vs porte
Shared letters: epr. Private to "perce": c. Private to "porte": ot.
"perce" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "porte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "perce" and "porte" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "perce" vs "porte" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
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 "porte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #379,034 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "perce" and "porte" 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 #379,034 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.