pétervspetraWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: péter is a verb, petra is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“péter” is a verb and “petra” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#7,226
“péter” frequency rank
#25,435
“petra” frequency rank
32661
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature péter petra
Definition Rejeter un gaz par l’anus. Faire un pet. Quoi, que ?

Where the eye mixes péter and petra

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

5 ch
péter
5 ch
petra

Visual trap between péter and petra

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: péter is \pe.te\ while petra is \ˈpe.tʁa\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs pronoun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 32661, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

péter is recorded at frequency rank #7,226, classified as averb, pronounced \pe.te\. petra is at rank #25,435, tagged as apron, pronounced \ˈpe.tʁa\.

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 32661, this pair ranks #295,811 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of péter vs petra

Shared letters: eprt. Private to "péter": é. Private to "petra": a.

"péter" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "petra" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • petraeptra · perta · petar · petrra · pettra · ppetra · ptera

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "péter" for "petra" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "péter" is a verb and "petra" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "péter" vs "petra" - which ranks higher?
"péter" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,226 in our French list, against #25,435 for "petra". 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 "péter" and "petra" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "péter" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "petra" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #295,811 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "péter" and "petra" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pètes vs petra". 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 #295,811 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