provenance
\pʁɔv.nɑ̃s\
The verdict
“provenance” is a regularly-used French word, ranked #5,391 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #5,391
- frequency rank, French
- 10
- letters
- 15
- tracked misspellings
- 2
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Origine, endroit d’où provient une chose.
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 | provenance |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \pʁɔv.nɑ̃s\ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #5,391 |
| Misspellings tracked | 15 |
| Confusable pairs | 2 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “provenance” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for provenance is 10 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \pʁɔv.nɑ̃s\. Corpus data places it at rank #5,391 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 15 likely wrong-spelling variants for provenance, with forms such as "porvenance", "pprovenance", and "proevnance". 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 2 confusable-pair relationships, "Provence", "provenant", since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct French form is provenance, spelled P-R-O-V-E-N-A-N-C-E.
Definition
- 1Origine, endroit d’où provient une chose.
- 2(s’emploie surtout au pluriel) Tout ce qui provient d’un pays, tout ce qui est transporté d’un pays dans un autre.
Antonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: porvenance,pprovenance,proevnance,proveannce,provenacne,provenancce,provenanec,provenannce,provennace,provennance,provneance,provvenance,prrovenance,prvoenance,rpovenance
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of provenance - 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 "provenance"?
What does "provenance" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "provenance"?
How do you pronounce "provenance"?
What language does "provenance" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “provenance”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is P-R-O-V-E-N-A-N-C-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \pʁɔv.nɑ̃s\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “Provence” - see the side-by-side comparison. provenance vs Provence
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
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.