Which to use
“percée” and “père” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #11,826
- “percée” frequency rank
- #303
- “père” frequency rank
- 12129
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | percée | père |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Ouverture pratiquée soit pour faire un chemin, soit pour se procurer un point de vue. | Mâle ayant fécondé un ovule qui a donné naissance à un enfant ; géniteur. |
Where the eye mixes percée and père
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. percée runs 6 letters (CVCCVV) against père's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between percée and père
A purely visual mix-up. percée (\pɛʁ.se\) and père (\pɛʁ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12129, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
percée is recorded at frequency rank #11,826, classified as anoun, pronounced \pɛʁ.se\. père is at rank #303, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɛʁ\.
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 12129, this pair ranks #406,476 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of percée vs père
Shared letters: epr. Private to "percée": cé. Private to "père": è.
"percée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV · "père" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "percée" and "père" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary French text, does "percée" or "père" show up more?
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 "percée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "père" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #406,476 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "percée" and "père" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "percée vs priée". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #406,476 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.