percéesvspermetsTell them apart

Quick tell: percées is a adjective, permets is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“percées” is an adjective and “permets” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#27,905
“percées” frequency rank
#10,207
“permets” frequency rank
38112
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature percées permets
Definition Féminin pluriel de percé. Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de permettre.

Where the eye mixes percées and permets

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

7 ch
percées
7 ch
permets

Why the eye confuses percées with permets

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: percées is \pɛʁ.se\ while permets is \pɛʁ.mɛ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38112, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

percées is recorded at frequency rank #27,905, classified as anadj, pronounced \pɛʁ.se\. permets is at rank #10,207, tagged as averb, pronounced \pɛʁ.mɛ\.

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 38112, this pair ranks #257,588 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of percées vs permets

Shared letters: eprs. Private to "percées": . Private to "permets": mt.

"percées" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC  ·  "permets" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • permetseprmets · pemrets · peremts · permest · permetss · permetts · permmets · permtes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "percées" for "permets" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "percées" is an adjective and "permets" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "percées" vs "permets" - which ranks higher?
"permets" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,207 in our French list, against #27,905 for "percées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "percées" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "permets" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #257,588 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "percées" and "permets" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "percées vs périmés". 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 #257,588 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