percéevspertesConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#11,826
“percée” frequency rank
#3,485
“pertes” frequency rank
15311
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature percée pertes
Definition Ouverture pratiquée soit pour faire un chemin, soit pour se procurer un point de vue. Pluriel de perte.

Where the eye mixes percée and pertes

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

6 ch
percée
6 ch
pertes

Why the eye confuses percée with pertes

A purely visual mix-up. percée (\pɛʁ.se\) and pertes (\pɛʁt\) 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 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 15311, 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\. pertes is at rank #3,485, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɛʁt\.

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 15311, this pair ranks #392,901 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of percée vs pertes

Shared letters: epr. Private to "percée": . Private to "pertes": st.

"percée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "pertes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • perteseprtes · perets · perrtes · pertess · pertse · perttes · petres · ppertes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "percée" for "pertes" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\pɛʁ.se\ versus \pɛʁt\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "percée" vs "pertes" - which ranks higher?
"pertes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,485 in our French list, against #11,826 for "percée". 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 "pertes" 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 "pertes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #392,901 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "percée" and "pertes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "percée vs priée". 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 #392,901 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