perdaisvsperduesWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: perdais is a verb, perdues is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“perdais” is a verb and “perdues” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#37,475
“perdais” frequency rank
#9,213
“perdues” frequency rank
46688
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature perdais perdues
Definition Première personne du singulier de l’imparfait de perdre. Féminin pluriel de perdu.

Where the eye mixes perdais and perdues

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

7 ch
perdais
7 ch
perdues

Why the eye confuses perdais with perdues

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: perdais is \pɛʁ.dɛ\ while perdues is \pɛʁ.dy\. 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 adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46688, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

perdais is recorded at frequency rank #37,475, classified as averb, pronounced \pɛʁ.dɛ\. perdues is at rank #9,213, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pɛʁ.dy\.

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 46688, this pair ranks #192,920 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of perdais vs perdues

Shared letters: deprs. Private to "perdais": ai. Private to "perdues": u.

"perdais" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC  ·  "perdues" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • perdais ← eprdais · pedrais · peradis · perdaiss · perdasi · perddais · perdias · perrdais
  • perdues ← eprdues · pedrues · perddues · perdeus · perduess · perduse · perrdues · perudes

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "perdais" and "perdues" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "perdais" is a verb and "perdues" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "perdais" vs "perdues" - which ranks higher?
"perdues" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,213 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.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "perdais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "perdues" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #192,920 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "perdais" and "perdues" 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 #192,920 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