percevoirvsprévoirWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#10,763
“percevoir” frequency rank
#4,703
“prévoir” frequency rank
15466
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature percevoir prévoir
Definition Recevoir, recueillir certaines choses, comme les revenus d’une propriété, des droits, des impôts, etc. Juger par avance qu’une chose doit arriver.

Where the eye mixes percevoir and prévoir

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. percevoir runs 9 letters (CVCCVCVVC) against prévoir's 7 (CCVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
percevoir
7 ch
prévoir

Visual trap between percevoir and prévoir

A purely visual mix-up. percevoir (\pɛʁ.sə.vwaʁ\) and prévoir (\pʁe.vwaʁ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 15466, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

percevoir is recorded at frequency rank #10,763, classified as averb, pronounced \pɛʁ.sə.vwaʁ\. prévoir is at rank #4,703, tagged as averb, pronounced \pʁe.vwaʁ\.

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 15466, this pair ranks #392,248 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of percevoir vs prévoir

Shared letters: ioprv. Private to "percevoir": ce. Private to "prévoir": é.

"percevoir" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCVVC  ·  "prévoir" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • percevoir ← eprcevoir · pecrevoir · perccevoir · perceovir · percevior · percevoirr · percevori · percevvoir

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "percevoir" and "prévoir" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\pɛʁ.sə.vwaʁ\ versus \pʁe.vwaʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "percevoir" or "prévoir" show up more?
"prévoir" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,703 in our French list, against #10,763 for "percevoir". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "percevoir" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "prévoir" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #392,248 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "percevoir" and "prévoir" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "percevoir vs perchoir". 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 #392,248 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