perchevsperçueTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#13,444
“perche” frequency rank
#12,214
“perçue” frequency rank
25658
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature perche perçue
Definition Poisson de la famille des percidés, de nom scientifique Perca fluviatilis, aussi appelée perche commune. Féminin singulier de perçu.

Where the eye mixes perche and perçue

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

6 ch
perche
6 ch
perçue

Visual trap between perche and perçue

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: perche is \pɛʁʃ\ while perçue is \pɛʁ.sy\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25658, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

perche is recorded at frequency rank #13,444, classified as anoun, pronounced \pɛʁʃ\. perçue is at rank #12,214, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pɛʁ.sy\.

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 25658, this pair ranks #339,606 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of perche vs perçue

Shared letters: epr. Private to "perche": ch. Private to "perçue": .

"perche" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV  ·  "perçue" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • percheeprche · pecrhe · percche · perceh · perchhe · perhce · perrche · pperche

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "perche" for "perçue" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "perche" is a noun and "perçue" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "perche" or "perçue" show up more?
"perçue" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,214 in our French list, against #13,444 for "perche". 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 "perche" and "perçue" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "perche" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "perçue" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #339,606 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "perche" and "perçue" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pencha vs perche". 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 #339,606 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