pegavsperWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: pega is a adjective, per is a preposition, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“pega” is an adjective and “per” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2,340
“pega” frequency rank
#5,775
“per” frequency rank
8115
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pega per
Definition designativo de cavalo malhado por

Letter map: pega vs per

Shared letters muted; letters that set pega and per apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
pega
3 ch
per

Part-of-speech tell for pega / per

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: pega is anadjective and perapreposition. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 8115, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pega is recorded at frequency rank #2,340, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈpɛ.gɐ/. per is at rank #5,775, tagged as aprep.

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 8115, this pair ranks #65,781 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of pega vs per

Shared letters: ep. Private to "pega": ag. Private to "per": r.

"pega" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "per" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pegaepga · peag · pegga · pgea · ppega

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "pega" and "per" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pega" is an adjective and "per" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "pega" vs "per" - which ranks higher?
"pega" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,340 in our Portuguese list, against #5,775 for "per". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "pega" and "per".

  • Full dictionary entry for "pega" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "per" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #65,781 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pega" and "per" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "per vs pix". 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 #65,781 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