persesvspressésWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#20,814
“perses” frequency rank
#15,969
“pressés” frequency rank
36783
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature perses pressés
Definition Pluriel de perse. Masculin pluriel de pressé.

Where the eye mixes perses and pressés

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. perses runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against pressés's 7 (CCVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
perses
7 ch
pressés

Look-alike desk: perses vs pressés

A purely visual mix-up. perses (\pɛʁs\) and pressés (\pʁɛ.se\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 36783, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

perses is recorded at frequency rank #20,814, classified as anadj, pronounced \pɛʁs\. pressés is at rank #15,969, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pʁɛ.se\.

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 36783, this pair ranks #267,170 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of perses vs pressés

Shared letters: eprs. Private to "perses": -. Private to "pressés": é.

"perses" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "pressés" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • perses ← eprses · peress · perrses · persess · persses · pesres · pperses · preses

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "perses" for "pressés" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\pɛʁs\ versus \pʁɛ.se\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "perses" vs "pressés" - which ranks higher?
"pressés" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,969 in our French list, against #20,814 for "perses". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "perses" and "pressés" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "perses" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pressés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #267,170 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "perses" and "pressés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "perses vs pieuses". 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 #267,170 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