pervspiorWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#5,775
“per” frequency rank
#745
“pior” frequency rank
6520
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature per pior
Definition por o que é inferior a tudo o mais

Letter map: per vs pior

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

3 ch
per
4 ch
pior

Role in the sentence - per and pior

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: per is apreposition and pioranoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 6520, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

per is recorded at frequency rank #5,775, classified as aprep. pior is at rank #745, tagged as anoun, pronounced /pɪ.ˈɒɹ/.

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 6520, this pair ranks #67,895 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of per vs pior

Shared letters: pr. Private to "per": e. Private to "pior": io.

"per" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "pior" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pioripor · piorr · piro · poir · ppior

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "per" and "pior" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "per" is a preposition and "pior" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "per" vs "pior" - which ranks higher?
"pior" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #745 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.

What to do next

Pair "per" vs "pior" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "per" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pior" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #67,895 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "per" and "pior" 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 #67,895 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