princesvsprizesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#11,443
“princes” frequency rank
#7,046
“prizes” frequency rank
18489
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature princes prizes
Definition plural of prince plural of prize

Where the eye mixes princes and prizes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. princes runs 7 letters (CCVCCVC) against prizes's 6 (CCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
princes
6 ch
prizes

Visual trap between princes and prizes

A purely visual mix-up. princes (/ˈpɹɪnsɪz/) and prizes (/ˈpɹaɪzɪz/) 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 18489, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

princes is recorded at frequency rank #11,443, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈpɹɪnsɪz/. prizes is at rank #7,046, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈpɹaɪzɪz/.

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 18489, this pair ranks #444,576 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of princes vs prizes

Shared letters: eiprs. Private to "princes": cn. Private to "prizes": z.

"princes" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC  ·  "prizes" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • princes ← pirnces · pprinces · pricnes · princces · princse · prinecs · prinnces · prnices
  • prizes ← pirzes · pprizes · priezs · prizess · prizse · prizzes · prrizes · przies

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "princes" and "prizes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/ˈpɹɪnsɪz/ versus /ˈpɹaɪzɪz/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "princes" vs "prizes" - which ranks higher?
"prizes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,046 in our English list, against #11,443 for "princes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "princes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "prizes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #444,576 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "princes" and "prizes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "princes vs prunes". 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 #444,576 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list