Which to use
“périmée” is an adjective and “primer” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #42,551
- “périmée” frequency rank
- #31,191
- “primer” frequency rank
- 73742
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | périmée | primer |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Féminin singulier de périmé. | Devancer, dominer, l’emporter sur quelqu’un ou sur quelque chose, y imposer sa domination. Note d’usage : À l’origine sans préposition, en ce sens il est d’ordinaire suivi désormais de sur. |
Where the eye mixes périmée and primer
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. périmée runs 7 letters (CVCVCVV) against primer's 6 (CCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between périmée and primer
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: périmée is \pe.ʁi.me\ while primer is \pʁi.me\. 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 (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 73742, 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\. primer is at rank #31,191, tagged as averb, pronounced \pʁi.me\.
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 73742, this pair ranks #39,440 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of périmée vs primer
Shared letters: eimpr. Private to "périmée": é. Private to "primer": -.
"périmée" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV · "primer" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- primer ← pirmer · pprimer · priemr · primerr · primmer · primre · prmier · prrimer
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "périmée" and "primer" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "périmée" vs "primer" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "périmée" and "primer" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "périmée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "primer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #39,440 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "périmée" and "primer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "périmée 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 #39,440 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.