perçuesvspertesTell them apart

Quick tell: perçues is a adjective, pertes is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#18,826
“perçues” frequency rank
#3,485
“pertes” frequency rank
22311
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature perçues pertes
Definition Féminin pluriel de perçu. Pluriel de perte.

Where the eye mixes perçues and pertes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. perçues runs 7 letters (CVCCVVC) against pertes's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
perçues
6 ch
pertes

Visual trap between perçues and pertes

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: perçues is \pɛʁ.sy\ while pertes is \pɛʁt\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22311, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

perçues is recorded at frequency rank #18,826, classified as anadj, pronounced \pɛʁ.sy\. 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 22311, this pair ranks #358,680 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of perçues vs pertes

Shared letters: eprs. Private to "perçues": . Private to "pertes": t.

"perçues" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC  ·  "pertes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "perçues" for "pertes" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "perçues" is an adjective and "pertes" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "perçues" or "pertes" show up more?
"pertes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,485 in our French list, against #18,826 for "perçues". 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 "perçues" and "pertes" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "perçues" 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 #358,680 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "perçues" and "pertes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "perçues 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 #358,680 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