pertevspureTell them apart

Which to use

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

#1,418
“perte” frequency rank
#3,216
“pure” frequency rank
4634
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature perte pure
Definition Privation de quelque chose de précieux, d’agréable, de commode, qu’on avait. La boisson en elle-même, plutôt fortement alcoolisée qui n’est pas coupé avec une autre plus légère ou sans alcool.

Where the eye mixes perte and pure

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
perte
4 ch
pure

Visual trap between perte and pure

A purely visual mix-up. perte (\pɛʁt\) and pure (\pyʁ\) 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 4634, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

perte is recorded at frequency rank #1,418, classified as anoun, pronounced \pɛʁt\. pure is at rank #3,216, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pyʁ\.

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 4634, this pair ranks #431,104 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of perte vs pure

Shared letters: epr. Private to "perte": t. Private to "pure": u.

"perte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "pure" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • perteeprte · peret · perrte · pertte · petre · pperte · prete
  • pureppure · prue · purre · upre

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "perte" and "pure" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\pɛʁt\ versus \pyʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "perte" vs "pure" - which ranks higher?
"perte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,418 in our French list, against #3,216 for "pure". 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 "perte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pure" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #431,104 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "perte" and "pure" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "prep vs pure". 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 #431,104 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