perdevsperteWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#13,654
“perde” frequency rank
#1,418
“perte” frequency rank
15072
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature perde perte
Definition Première personne du singulier du présent du subjonctif de perdre. Privation de quelque chose de précieux, d’agréable, de commode, qu’on avait.

Where the eye mixes perde and perte

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
perde
5 ch
perte

Look-alike desk: perde vs perte

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: perde is \pɛʁd\ while perte is \pɛʁt\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - d in “perde” becomes t in “perte”, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 15072, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

perde is recorded at frequency rank #13,654, classified as averb, pronounced \pɛʁd\. perte is at rank #1,418, 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 15072, this pair ranks #393,976 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of perde vs perte

Shared letters: epr. Private to "perde": d. Private to "perte": t.

"perde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "perte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • perdeeprde · pedre · perdde · pered · pperde · prede
  • perteeprte · peret · perrte · pertte · petre · pperte · prete

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "perde" and "perte" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "perde" is a verb and "perte" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "perde" or "perte" show up more?
"perte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,418 in our French list, against #13,654 for "perde". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "perde" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "perte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #393,976 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "perde" and "perte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "perde vs prude". 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 #393,976 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