perdrevsperdrixWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#794
“perdre” frequency rank
#33,824
“perdrix” frequency rank
34618
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature perdre perdrix
Definition Être privé de quelque chose qu’on avait, qu’on possédait. Nom normalisé réservé à six genres de gallinacés de petite taille, de la sous-famille des perdicinés (e.g. cailles, francolins, lagopèdes, etc.) et au sein de la famille des phasianidés, vivant en Europe, en Asie ou en Afrique du Nord, dont les genres les mieux connus sont Perdix (incluant la perdrix grise) et Alectoris (qui inclut la perdrix rouge, la perdrix bartavelle, la perdrix choukar, etc.).

Where the eye mixes perdre and perdrix

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

6 ch
perdre
7 ch
perdrix

Look-alike desk: perdre vs perdrix

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: perdre is \pɛʁdʁ\ while perdrix is \pɛʁ.dʁi\. 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 noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34618, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

perdre is recorded at frequency rank #794, classified as averb, pronounced \pɛʁdʁ\. perdrix is at rank #33,824, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɛʁ.dʁi\.

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 34618, this pair ranks #282,555 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of perdre vs perdrix

Shared letters: depr. Private to "perdre": -. Private to "perdrix": ix.

"perdre" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV  ·  "perdrix" · 7 letters · shape CVCCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • perdre ← eprdre · pedrre · perddre · perder · perdrre · perrde · perrdre · pperdre
  • perdrix ← eprdrix · pedrrix · perddrix · perdirx · perdrixx · perdrrix · perdrxi · perrdix

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "perdre" and "perdrix" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "perdre" is a verb and "perdrix" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "perdre" or "perdrix"?
"perdre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #794 in our French list, against #33,824 for "perdrix". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "perdre" and "perdrix" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "perdre" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "perdrix" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #282,555 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "perdre" and "perdrix" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "perdrai vs perdrix". 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 #282,555 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