prou
\pʁu\
The verdict
“prou” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #27,198) as an adverb. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #27,198
- frequency rank, French
- 6,826
- “P” headwords
- 4
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Assez, beaucoup.
Corpus desk
Index FR-prou · prou · French
prou · rank #27,198 · 4 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #27,198
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-LOW 4 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,826
- PHOTO-FINISH priés
Nearest frequency peer: priés (-1 rank slots)
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbourhood for “prou”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- pressentime…
pressentiment
72,806 corpus weight
- prient
prient
72,805 corpus weight
- priés
priés
72,804 corpus weight
- prou
prou
72,803 corpus weight
- prune
prune
72,802 corpus weight
- précisée
précisée
72,801 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “prou” sits against the nearest ranked French headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | prou |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| IPA | \pʁu\ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #27,198 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Où “prou” se place dans la fréquence du français
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for prou is neighbouring look-alikes ("pu", "proue", …), not just typos; it is anadverb pronounced \pʁu\. Frequency #27,198 among 6,826 “P” headwords. Gloss: "Assez, beaucoup.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 4 likely wrong-spelling variants for prou, with forms such as "pprou", "prrou", and "pruo". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "pu", "proue", "proxy", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is prou, spelled P-R-O-U.
Definition
- 1Assez, beaucoup.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how prou appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Tandis que M. de la Porte endormait le Baron-boucher en lui promettant prou sans idée de lui donner rien, […].
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- pprou
- prrou
- pruo
- rpou
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of prou - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "prou"?
What does "prou" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "prou"?
How do you pronounce "prou"?
What language does "prou" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "prou", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
What to do next
You've looked up "prou". Here's where to go from here.
- "prou" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "pu". View pair
- 4 edit-distance misspelling variants are generated for spell-check research on this headword. See variants
- Usage frequency rank #27,198 among French headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more French words in the "P" letter cohort. P–Z browse
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.