perçoisvspertuisConfusable pair

Quick tell: perçois is a verb, pertuis is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“perçois” is a verb and “pertuis” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#34,246
“perçois” frequency rank
#44,627
“pertuis” frequency rank
78873
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature perçois pertuis
Definition Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de percevoir. Ouverture ; trou.

Where the eye mixes perçois and pertuis

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. perçois and pertuis follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
perçois
7 ch
pertuis

Look-alike desk: perçois vs pertuis

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: perçois is \pɛʁ.swa\ while pertuis is \pɛʁ.tɥi\. 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 (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 78873, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

perçois is recorded at frequency rank #34,246, classified as averb, pronounced \pɛʁ.swa\. pertuis is at rank #44,627, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɛʁ.tɥi\.

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 78873, this pair ranks #24,658 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of perçois vs pertuis

Shared letters: eiprs. Private to "perçois": oç. Private to "pertuis": tu.

"perçois" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC  ·  "pertuis" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pertuis ← eprtuis · perrtuis · pertius · perttuis · pertuiss · pertusi · perutis · petruis

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "perçois" for "pertuis" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "perçois" is a verb and "pertuis" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "perçois" or "pertuis"?
"perçois" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #34,246 in our French list, against #44,627 for "pertuis". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "perçois" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pertuis" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #24,658 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "perçois" and "pertuis" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "perdais vs pertuis". 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 #24,658 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