périlvsPermWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: péril is a noun, Perm is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“péril” is a noun and “Perm” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#7,489
“péril” frequency rank
#33,397
“Perm” frequency rank
40886
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature péril Perm
Definition Danger, risque, état où il y a quelque chose de fâcheux à craindre. Ville de la Russie européenne, située au pied des monts Oural.

Where the eye mixes péril and Perm

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

5 ch
péril
4 ch
Perm

Why the eye confuses péril with Perm

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: péril is \pe.ʁil\ while Perm is \pɛʁm\. 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 (noun vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40886, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

péril is recorded at frequency rank #7,489, classified as anoun, pronounced \pe.ʁil\. Perm is at rank #33,397, tagged as aname, pronounced \pɛʁm\.

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 40886, this pair ranks #237,175 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of péril vs Perm

Shared letters: pr. Private to "péril": ilé. Private to "Perm": em.

"péril" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "Perm" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Permeprm · pemr · permm · perrm · pperm

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "péril" and "Perm" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "péril" is a noun and "Perm" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "péril" or "Perm" show up more?
"péril" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,489 in our French list, against #33,397 for "Perm". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "péril" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Perm" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #237,175 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "péril" and "Perm" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "peep vs Perm". 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 #237,175 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