permirentvsprirentWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#32,114
“permirent” frequency rank
#18,564
“prirent” frequency rank
50678
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature permirent prirent
Definition Troisième personne du pluriel du passé simple de permettre. Troisième personne du pluriel du passé simple du verbe prendre.

Where the eye mixes permirent and prirent

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence.

9 ch
permirent
7 ch
prirent

Visual trap between permirent and prirent

A purely visual mix-up. permirent (\pɛʁ.miʁ\) and prirent (\pʁiʁ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50678, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

permirent is recorded at frequency rank #32,114, classified as averb, pronounced \pɛʁ.miʁ\. prirent is at rank #18,564, tagged as averb, pronounced \pʁiʁ\.

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 50678, this pair ranks #160,776 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of permirent vs prirent

Shared letters: einprt. Private to "permirent": m. Private to "prirent": -.

"permirent" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCVCC  ·  "prirent" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • permirenteprmirent · pemrirent · perimrent · permiernt · permirennt · permirentt · permiretn · permirnet
  • prirentpirrent · pprirent · priernt · prirennt · prirentt · priretn · prirnet · prirrent

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "permirent" for "prirent" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\pɛʁ.miʁ\ versus \pʁiʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "permirent" vs "prirent" - which ranks higher?
"prirent" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,564 in our French list, against #32,114 for "permirent". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "permirent" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "prirent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #160,776 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "permirent" and "prirent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "périrent vs permirent". 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 #160,776 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