piecevsprinceWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“piece” and “prince” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#975
“piece” frequency rank
#1,960
“prince” frequency rank
2935
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature piece prince
Definition A part of a larger whole, usually in such a form that it is able to be separated from other parts. A (male) ruler, a sovereign; a king, monarch.

Where the eye mixes piece and prince

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
piece
6 ch
prince

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. piece (/piːs/) and prince (/pɹɪns/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2935, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

piece is recorded at frequency rank #975, classified as anoun, pronounced /piːs/. prince is at rank #1,960, tagged as anoun, pronounced /pɹɪns/.

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 2935, this pair ranks #523,600 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of piece vs prince

Shared letters: ceip. Private to "piece": -. Private to "prince": nr.

"piece" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "prince" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pieceipece · peice · picee · piecce · pieec · ppiece
  • princepirnce · pprince · pricne · princce · prinec · prinnce · prnice · prrince

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "piece" and "prince" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/piːs/ versus /pɹɪns/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "piece" or "prince"?
"piece" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #975 in our English list, against #1,960 for "prince". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list