pervspubTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#5,775
“per” frequency rank
#14,932
“pub” frequency rank
20707
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature per pub
Definition por bar, boteco

Letter map: per vs pub

Shared letters muted; letters that set per and pub apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch
per
3 ch
pub

Part-of-speech tell for per / pub

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: per is apreposition and pubanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20707, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

per is recorded at frequency rank #5,775, classified as aprep. pub is at rank #14,932, tagged as anoun, pronounced /pʌb/.

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 20707, this pair ranks #49,734 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of per vs pub

Shared letters: p. Private to "per": er. Private to "pub": bu.

"per" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "pub" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "per" for "pub" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "per" is a preposition and "pub" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "per" or "pub"?
"per" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,775 in our Portuguese list, against #14,932 for "pub". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "per" and "pub". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "per" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pub" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #49,734 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "per" and "pub" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pix vs pub". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #49,734 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