pecarvspercaWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#32,725
“pecar” frequency rank
#4,502
“perca” frequency rank
37227
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pecar perca
Definition cometer pecado peixe de água doce, da família dos Percídeos (Percidae), de carne muito apreciada

Letter map: pecar vs perca

Shared letters muted; letters that set pecar and perca apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

5 ch
pecar
5 ch
perca

Grammar separator: pecar vs perca

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: pecar is averb and percaanoun. On the page they are an anagram pair: the same letters reordered. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37227, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pecar is recorded at frequency rank #32,725, classified as averb, pronounced /pɨ.ˈkaɾ/. perca is at rank #4,502, tagged as anoun.

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 37227, this pair ranks #29,433 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pecar vs perca

Shared letters: acepr. Private to "pecar": -. Private to "perca": -.

"pecar" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "perca" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pecarepcar · pcear · peacr · pecarr · peccar · ppecar
  • percaeprca · pecra · perac · percca · perrca · pperca · preca

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pecar" for "perca" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pecar" is a verb and "perca" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "pecar" vs "perca" - which ranks higher?
"perca" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,502 in our Portuguese list, against #32,725 for "pecar". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "pecar" and "perca". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pecar" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "perca" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #29,433 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pecar" and "perca" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pacas vs pecar". 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 #29,433 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list