percéevspériméeWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: percée is a noun, périmée is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“percée” is a noun and “périmée” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#11,826
“percée” frequency rank
#42,551
“périmée” frequency rank
54377
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature percée périmée
Definition Ouverture pratiquée soit pour faire un chemin, soit pour se procurer un point de vue. Féminin singulier de périmé.

Where the eye mixes percée and périmée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
percée
7 ch
périmée

Visual trap between percée and périmée

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: percée is \pɛʁ.se\ while périmée is \pe.ʁi.me\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54377, 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\. périmée is at rank #42,551, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pe.ʁi.me\.

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 54377, this pair ranks #134,464 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of percée vs périmée

Shared letters: epré. Private to "percée": c. Private to "périmée": im.

"percée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "périmée" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "percée" and "périmée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "percée" is a noun and "périmée" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "percée" or "périmée"?
"percée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,826 in our French list, against #42,551 for "périmée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "percée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "périmée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #134,464 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "percée" and "périmée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "périmée vs priée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #134,464 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