percervsPerséeWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: percer is a verb, Persée is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“percer” is a verb and “Persée” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#9,053
“percer” frequency rank
#37,476
“Persée” frequency rank
46529
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature percer Persée
Definition Traverser en faisant un trou ou une ouverture ; perforer. Sauveur d’Andromède, fille de Céphée et Cassiopée.

Same sound, different letters: percer vs Persée

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters.

6 ch
percer
6 ch
Persée

Homophone desk: percer vs Persée

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: percer and Persée carry the same recorded pronunciation, \pɛʁ.se\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other aname, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46529, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

percer is recorded at frequency rank #9,053, classified as averb, pronounced \pɛʁ.se\. Persée is at rank #37,476, tagged as aname, pronounced \pɛʁ.se\.

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 46529, this pair ranks #194,179 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of percer vs Persée

Shared letters: epr. Private to "percer": c. Private to "Persée": .

"percer" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "Persée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • percereprcer · pecrer · perccer · percerr · percre · perecr · perrcer · ppercer

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "percer" and "Persée" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "percer" is a verb and "Persée" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "percer" or "Persée" show up more?
"percer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,053 in our French list, against #37,476 for "Persée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

"percer" and "Persée" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "percer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Persée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #194,179 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "percer" and "Persée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Persée 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 #194,179 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