Provence
\pʁɔ.vɑ̃s\
The verdict
“Provence” is a regularly-used French word, ranked #3,491 in French word frequency and used as a proper noun.
- #3,491
- frequency rank, French
- 8
- letters
- 12
- tracked misspellings
- 14
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Ancien comté français devenu en 1481 une province royale française qui correspondrait aujourd’hui, au sens large, à une grande partie de la région administrative Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur.
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 | Provence |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| IPA | \pʁɔ.vɑ̃s\ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #3,491 |
| Misspellings tracked | 12 |
| Confusable pairs | 14 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “Provence” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for Provence is 8 letters long, classified as a proper noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \pʁɔ.vɑ̃s\. Corpus data places it at rank #3,491 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 12 likely wrong-spelling variants for Provence, with forms such as "porvence", "pprovence", and "proevnce". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 14 confusable-pair relationships, "province", "prudence", "proverbe", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, 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 Provence, spelled P-R-O-V-E-N-C-E.
Definition
- 1Ancien comté français devenu en 1481 une province royale française qui correspondrait aujourd’hui, au sens large, à une grande partie de la région administrative Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur.
- 2Ensemble des pays de la langue d’oc.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: porvence,pprovence,proevnce,provecne,provencce,provenec,provennce,provnece,provvence,prrovence,prvoence,rpovence
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of Provence - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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 "Provence"?
What does "Provence" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "Provence"?
How do you pronounce "Provence"?
What language does "Provence" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “Provence”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is P-R-O-V-E-N-C-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \pʁɔ.vɑ̃s\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “province” - see the side-by-side comparison. Provence vs province
- 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.