perduvsperdusWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#634
“perdu” frequency rank
#5,799
“perdus” frequency rank
6433
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature perdu perdus
Definition Dont on n’a plus la possession, la jouissance. Masculin pluriel de perdu.

Same sound, different letters: perdu vs perdus

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters.

5 ch
perdu
6 ch
perdus

Ear matches; page differs - perdu and perdus

This is the hard kind. perdu and perdus are pronounced identically (\pɛʁ.dy\) and both work as anadjective. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “perdu” sits inside “perdus”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 6433, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

perdu is recorded at frequency rank #634, classified as anadj, pronounced \pɛʁ.dy\. perdus is at rank #5,799, 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 6433, this pair ranks #426,224 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of perdu vs perdus

Shared letters: depru. Private to "perdu": -. Private to "perdus": s.

"perdu" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "perdus" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • perdueprdu · pedru · perddu · perrdu · perud · pperdu · predu
  • perduseprdus · pedrus · perddus · perdsu · perduss · perrdus · peruds · pperdus

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "perdu" and "perdus" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\pɛʁ.dy\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "perdu" vs "perdus" - which ranks higher?
"perdu" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #634 in our French list, against #5,799 for "perdus". 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 "perdu" / "perdus". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "perdu" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "perdus" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #426,224 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "perdu" and "perdus" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "perdras vs perdus". 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 #426,224 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