perdvspetraWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: perd is a verb, petra is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“perd” is a verb and “petra” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,928
“perd” frequency rank
#25,435
“petra” frequency rank
27363
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature perd petra
Definition Troisième personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de perdre. Quoi, que ?

Where the eye mixes perd and petra

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
perd
5 ch
petra

Look-alike desk: perd vs petra

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: perd is \pɛʁ\ while petra is \ˈpe.tʁa\. 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 (verb vs pronoun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27363, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

perd is recorded at frequency rank #1,928, classified as averb, pronounced \pɛʁ\. petra is at rank #25,435, tagged as apron, pronounced \ˈpe.tʁa\.

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 27363, this pair ranks #329,453 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of perd vs petra

Shared letters: epr. Private to "perd": d. Private to "petra": at.

"perd" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "petra" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • perdeprd · pedr · perdd · perrd · pperd · pred
  • petraeptra · perta · petar · petrra · pettra · ppetra · ptera

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "perd" for "petra" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "perd" is a verb and "petra" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "perd" or "petra"?
"perd" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,928 in our French list, against #25,435 for "petra". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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 "perd" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "petra" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #329,453 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "perd" and "petra" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pètes vs petra". 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 #329,453 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