perdrevsPerséeWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#794
“perdre” frequency rank
#37,476
“Persée” frequency rank
38270
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature perdre Persée
Definition Être privé de quelque chose qu’on avait, qu’on possédait. Sauveur d’Andromède, fille de Céphée et Cassiopée.

Where the eye mixes perdre and Persée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. perdre (CVCCCV) and Persée (CVCCVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
perdre
6 ch
Persée

Why the eye confuses perdre with Persée

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: perdre is \pɛʁdʁ\ while Persée is \pɛʁ.se\. 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 name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38270, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

perdre is recorded at frequency rank #794, classified as averb, pronounced \pɛʁdʁ\. Persée is at rank #37,476, tagged as aname, pronounced \pɛʁ.se\.

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 38270, this pair ranks #256,446 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of perdre vs Persée

Shared letters: epr. Private to "perdre": d. Private to "Persée": sé.

"perdre" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV  ·  "Persée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • perdre ← eprdre · pedrre · perddre · perder · perdrre · perrde · perrdre · pperdre

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "perdre" and "Persée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "perdre" is a verb and "Persée" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "perdre" vs "Persée" - which ranks higher?
"perdre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #794 in our French list, against #37,476 for "Persée". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "perdre" and "Persée" 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 "Persée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #256,446 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "perdre" and "Persée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Persée vs priée". 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 #256,446 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