persilvspersoWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: persil is a noun, perso is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“persil” is a noun and “perso” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#25,434
“persil” frequency rank
#2,326
“perso” frequency rank
27760
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature persil perso
Definition Plante potagère aromatique de la famille des apiacées qui ressemble au cerfeuil et qui sert à divers usages pour la cuisine. Personnel.

Where the eye mixes persil and perso

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
persil
5 ch
perso

Why the eye confuses persil with perso

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: persil is \pɛʁ.sil\ while perso is \pɛʁ.so\. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27760, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

persil is recorded at frequency rank #25,434, classified as anoun, pronounced \pɛʁ.sil\. perso is at rank #2,326, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pɛʁ.so\.

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 27760, this pair ranks #326,964 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of persil vs perso

Shared letters: eprs. Private to "persil": il. Private to "perso": o.

"persil" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "perso" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • persileprsil · perisl · perrsil · persill · persli · perssil · pesril · ppersil
  • persoeprso · peros · perrso · persso · pesro · pperso · preso

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "persil" for "perso" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "persil" is a noun and "perso" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "persil" vs "perso" - which ranks higher?
"perso" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,326 in our French list, against #25,434 for "persil". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "persil" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "perso" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #326,964 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "persil" and "perso" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pensif vs persil". 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 #326,964 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