Which to use
“price” is a noun and “prime” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #592
- “price” frequency rank
- #1,642
- “prime” frequency rank
- 2234
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | price | prime |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | The cost required to gain possession of something. | First in importance, degree, or rank. |
Where the eye mixes price and prime
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: price is /pɹaɪs/ while prime is /pɹaɪ̯m/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - c in “price” becomes m in “prime”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2234, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
price is recorded at frequency rank #592, classified as anoun, pronounced /pɹaɪs/. prime is at rank #1,642, tagged as anadj, pronounced /pɹaɪ̯m/.
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 2234, this pair ranks #525,503 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of price vs prime
Shared letters: eipr. Private to "price": c. Private to "prime": m.
"price" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV · "prime" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV