ProvsprobWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: Pro is a abbrev, prob is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Pro” is an abbrev and “prob” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#414
“Pro” frequency rank
#47,655
“prob” frequency rank
48069
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Pro prob
Definition Prolin, eine Aminosäure 2. Person Singular Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs proben

Letter map: Pro vs prob

Shared letters muted; letters that set Pro and prob apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

3 ch
Pro
4 ch
prob

Part-of-speech tell for Pro / prob

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Pro is anabbrev and probaverb. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “Pro” sits inside “prob”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48069, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Pro is recorded at frequency rank #414, classified as anabbrev. prob is at rank #47,655, tagged as averb, pronounced [pʁoːp].

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 48069, this pair ranks #1,261,910 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Pro vs prob

Shared letters: opr. Private to "Pro": -. Private to "prob": b.

"Pro" · 3 letters · shape CCV  ·  "prob" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • probporb · pprob · prbo · probb · prrob · rpob

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Pro" and "prob" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Pro" is an abbrev and "prob" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Pro" vs "prob" - which ranks higher?
"Pro" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #414 in our German list, against #47,655 for "prob". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "Pro" and "prob".

  • Full dictionary entry for "Pro" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "prob" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,261,910 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Pro" and "prob" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "PoC vs prob". 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 #1,261,910 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list