PermvspesWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#33,397
“Perm” frequency rank
#33,825
“pes” frequency rank
67222
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Perm pes
Definition Ville de la Russie européenne, située au pied des monts Oural. Pluriel de pe.

Where the eye mixes Perm and pes

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

4 ch
Perm
3 ch
pes

Why the eye confuses Perm with pes

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Perm is \pɛʁm\ while pes is \pe\. 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 (name vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67222, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Perm is recorded at frequency rank #33,397, classified as aname, pronounced \pɛʁm\. pes is at rank #33,825, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pe\.

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 67222, this pair ranks #64,361 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Perm vs pes

Shared letters: ep. Private to "Perm": mr. Private to "pes": s.

"Perm" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "pes" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Permeprm · pemr · permm · perrm · pperm

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Perm" and "pes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Perm" is a name and "pes" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "Perm" or "pes" show up more?
"Perm" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,397 in our French list, against #33,825 for "pes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Perm" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #64,361 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Perm" and "pes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pes vs prep". 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 #64,361 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