per vs Peter, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#5,775
“per” frequency rank: #1,940
“Peter” frequency rank: 7715
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	per	Peter
Definition	por	Pedro

Letter map: per vs Peter

Shared letters muted; letters that set per and Peter apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

3 ch

per

5 ch

Peter

Grammar separator: per vs Peter

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: per is apreposition and Peteranoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 7715, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

per is recorded at frequency rank #5,775, classified as aprep. Peter is at rank #1,940, tagged as anoun, pronounced /piːtə/..

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 7715, this pair ranks #66,360 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of per vs Peter

Shared letters: epr. Private to "per": -. Private to "Peter": t.

"per" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "Peter" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

Peter ← epter · peetr · peterr · petre · petter · ppeter · pteer

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "per" for "Peter" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "per" is a preposition and "Peter" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "per" or "Peter" show up more?

"Peter" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,940 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 "per" and "Peter".

Full dictionary entry for "per" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "Peter" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #66,360 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"per" and "Peter" 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 #66,360 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.