perdaientvsperdaisConfusable pair

Which to use

“perdaient” and “perdais” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#35,635
“perdaient” frequency rank
#37,475
“perdais” frequency rank
73110
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature perdaient perdais
Definition Troisième personne du pluriel de l’imparfait de perdre. Première personne du singulier de l’imparfait de perdre.

Same sound, different letters: perdaient vs perdais

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters.

9 ch
perdaient
7 ch
perdais

Homophone desk: perdaient vs perdais

This is the hard kind. perdaient and perdais are pronounced identically (\pɛʁ.dɛ\) and both work as averb. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 73110, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

perdaient is recorded at frequency rank #35,635, classified as averb, pronounced \pɛʁ.dɛ\. perdais is at rank #37,475, tagged as averb, pronounced \pɛʁ.dɛ\.

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 73110, this pair ranks #41,586 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of perdaient vs perdais

Shared letters: adeipr. Private to "perdaient": nt. Private to "perdais": s.

"perdaient" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVVVCC  ·  "perdais" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • perdaienteprdaient · pedraient · peradient · perdaeint · perdaiennt · perdaientt · perdaietn · perdainet
  • perdaiseprdais · pedrais · peradis · perdaiss · perdasi · perddais · perdias · perrdais

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "perdaient" for "perdais" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (\pɛʁ.dɛ\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
In ordinary French text, does "perdaient" or "perdais" show up more?
"perdaient" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #35,635 in our French list, against #37,475 for "perdais". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've separated the homophone pair "perdaient" / "perdais". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "perdaient" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "perdais" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #41,586 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "perdaient" and "perdais" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "perdais vs perdrai". 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 #41,586 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