perpétrévsperpétrésWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: perpétré is a verb, perpétrés is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#29,076
“perpétré” frequency rank
#30,303
“perpétrés” frequency rank
59379
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature perpétré perpétrés
Definition Participe passé masculin singulier de perpétrer. Masculin pluriel de perpétré.

Same sound, different letters: perpétré vs perpétrés

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. perpétré runs 8 letters (CVCCVCCV) against perpétrés's 9 (CVCCVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
perpétré
9 ch
perpétrés

Ear matches; page differs - perpétré and perpétrés

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: perpétré and perpétrés carry the same recorded pronunciation, \pɛʁ.pe.tʁe\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “perpétré” sits inside “perpétrés”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59379, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

perpétré is recorded at frequency rank #29,076, classified as averb, pronounced \pɛʁ.pe.tʁe\. perpétrés is at rank #30,303, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pɛʁ.pe.tʁe\.

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 59379, this pair ranks #103,512 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of perpétré vs perpétrés

Shared letters: eprté. Private to "perpétré": -. Private to "perpétrés": s.

"perpétré" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCCV  ·  "perpétrés" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "perpétré" and "perpétrés" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "perpétré" is a verb and "perpétrés" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "perpétré" or "perpétrés" show up more?
"perpétré" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #29,076 in our French list, against #30,303 for "perpétrés". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

"perpétré" and "perpétrés" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "perpétré" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "perpétrés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #103,512 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "perpétré" and "perpétrés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "périmètres vs perpétrés". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #103,512 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