province
\pʁɔ.vɛ̃s\
The verdict
“province” is a regularly-used French word, ranked #1,339 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #1,339
- frequency rank, French
- 8
- letters
- 12
- tracked misspellings
- 7
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Étendue de pays qui fait partie d’un État et qui possède plusieurs villes, bourgs, villages, etc., sous un même gouvernement.
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 | province |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \pʁɔ.vɛ̃s\ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #1,339 |
| Misspellings tracked | 12 |
| Confusable pairs | 7 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “province” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for province is 8 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \pʁɔ.vɛ̃s\. Corpus data places it at rank #1,339 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 13 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 province, with forms such as "porvince", "pprovince", and "proivnce". 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 7 confusable-pair relationships, "provins", "provinces", "prince", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct French form is province, spelled P-R-O-V-I-N-C-E.
Definition
- 1Étendue de pays qui fait partie d’un État et qui possède plusieurs villes, bourgs, villages, etc., sous un même gouvernement.
- 2Les habitants d’une province.
- 3Le reste du pays par opposition à la capitale, en parlant de la France.
- 4La province par opposition à la capitale avec un aspect péjoratif.
- 5Les habitants des provinces en général.
- 6Étendue de la juridiction d’une métropole, dans l’ancienne circonscription ecclésiastique de la France ; province ecclésiastique.
- 7Ensemble de monastères soumis à la direction d’un même supérieur, appelé provincial.
- 8Division administrative du pays, équivalent de département en France.
- 9Pays conquis assujetti aux lois du conquérant et administré par un gouverneur.
- 10Nom d'une sorte de division de l'Empire britannique, plus tard remplacée par des dominions plus autonomes contenant une ou plusieurs anciennes provinces.
- 11État doté d’un gouvernement élu et faisant partie de la fédération canadienne.
- 12Division administrative de premier niveau au Burundi (comprend des communes).
- 13Vaste territoire qui présente une certaine unité.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: porvince,pprovince,proivnce,provicne,provincce,provinec,provinnce,provnice,provvince,prrovince,prvoince,rpovince
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of province - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 "province"?
What does "province" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "province"?
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Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “province”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is P-R-O-V-I-N-C-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \pʁɔ.vɛ̃s\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “provins” - see the side-by-side comparison. province vs provins
- 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.