périméevspriéeWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: périmée is a adjective, priée is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“périmée” is an adjective and “priée” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#42,551
“périmée” frequency rank
#49,295
“priée” frequency rank
91846
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature périmée priée
Definition Féminin singulier de périmé. Participe passé féminin singulier de prier.

Where the eye mixes périmée and priée

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

7 ch
périmée
5 ch
priée

Why the eye confuses périmée with priée

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: périmée is \pe.ʁi.me\ while priée is \pʁi.je\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 91846, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

périmée is recorded at frequency rank #42,551, classified as anadj, pronounced \pe.ʁi.me\. priée is at rank #49,295, tagged as averb, pronounced \pʁi.je\.

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 91846, this pair ranks #3,480 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of périmée vs priée

Shared letters: eipré. Private to "périmée": m. Private to "priée": -.

"périmée" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV  ·  "priée" · 5 letters · shape CCVVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "périmée" and "priée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "périmée" is an adjective and "priée" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "périmée" or "priée" show up more?
"périmée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #42,551 in our French list, against #49,295 for "priée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "périmée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "priée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #3,480 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "périmée" and "priée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "prep vs priée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #3,480 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