pétervspetroWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#7,226
“péter” frequency rank
#39,935
“petro” frequency rank
47161
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature péter petro
Definition Rejeter un gaz par l’anus. Faire un pet. Monnaie virtuelle émise par le Venezuela.

Where the eye mixes péter and petro

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

5 ch
péter
5 ch
petro

Why the eye confuses péter with petro

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: péter is \pe.te\ while petro is \pe.tʁo\. 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 noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47161, 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\. petro is at rank #39,935, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pe.tʁo\.

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 47161, this pair ranks #189,094 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of péter vs petro

Shared letters: eprt. Private to "péter": é. Private to "petro": o.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • petroeptro · perto · petor · petrro · pettro · ppetro · ptero

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "péter" for "petro" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "péter" is a verb and "petro" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "péter" or "petro"?
"péter" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,226 in our French list, against #39,935 for "petro". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "péter" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "petro" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #189,094 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "péter" and "petro" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pètes vs petro". 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 #189,094 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