PostvsProstWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#1,966
“Post” frequency rank
#33,843
“Prost” frequency rank
35809
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Post Prost
Definition Nom de famille allemand, néerlandais. Nom de famille.

Where the eye mixes Post and Prost

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

4 ch
Post
5 ch
Prost

Why the eye confuses Post with Prost

A purely visual mix-up. Post (\pɔst\) and Prost (\pʁɔst\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35809, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Post is recorded at frequency rank #1,966, classified as aname, pronounced \pɔst\. Prost is at rank #33,843, tagged as aname, pronounced \pʁɔst\.

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 35809, this pair ranks #274,069 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Post vs Prost

Shared letters: opst. Private to "Post": -. Private to "Prost": r.

"Post" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "Prost" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Postopst · posst · postt · ppost · psot
  • Prostpprost · prosst · prostt · prrost · prsot · rpost

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Post" for "Prost" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\pɔst\ versus \pʁɔst\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "Post" or "Prost"?
"Post" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,966 in our French list, against #33,843 for "Prost". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "Post" and "Prost" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Post" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Prost" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #274,069 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Post" and "Prost" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "prism vs Prost". 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 #274,069 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