improvsintroTell them apart

Which to use

“impro” and “intro” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#29,390
“impro” frequency rank
#17,170
“intro” frequency rank
46560
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature impro intro
Definition Improvisation. Introduction.

Where the eye mixes impro and intro

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
impro
5 ch
intro

Why the eye confuses impro with intro

A purely visual mix-up. impro (\ɛ̃.pʁo\) and intro (\ɛ̃.tʁo\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46560, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

impro is recorded at frequency rank #29,390, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɛ̃.pʁo\. intro is at rank #17,170, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɛ̃.tʁo\.

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 46560, this pair ranks #193,948 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of impro vs intro

Shared letters: ior. Private to "impro": mp. Private to "intro": nt.

"impro" · 5 letters · shape VCCCV  ·  "intro" · 5 letters · shape VCCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • improimmpro · impor · imppro · imprro · imrpo · ipmro · mipro
  • introinntro · inrto · intor · intrro · inttro · itnro

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "impro" for "intro" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ɛ̃.pʁo\ versus \ɛ̃.tʁo\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "impro" vs "intro" - which ranks higher?
"intro" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,170 in our French list, against #29,390 for "impro". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "impro" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "intro" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #193,948 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "impro" and "intro" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "impec vs impro". 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 #193,948 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list