PrvsprogWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#5,064
“Pr” frequency rank
#30,751
“prog” frequency rank
35815
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Pr prog
Definition Professeur, comme un titre. Programmation.

Where the eye mixes Pr and prog

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

2 ch
Pr
4 ch
prog

Why the eye confuses Pr with prog

A purely visual mix-up. Pr (\pʁɔ.fɛ.sœʁ\) and prog (\pʁɔɡ\) 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 extra letter(s) - “Pr” sits inside “prog”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35815, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Pr is recorded at frequency rank #5,064, classified as anoun, pronounced \pʁɔ.fɛ.sœʁ\. prog is at rank #30,751, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pʁɔɡ\.

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 35815, this pair ranks #274,024 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Pr vs prog

Shared letters: pr. Private to "Pr": -. Private to "prog": go.

"Pr" · 2 letters · shape CC  ·  "prog" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • progporg · pprog · prgo · progg · prrog · rpog

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Pr" for "prog" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\pʁɔ.fɛ.sœʁ\ versus \pʁɔɡ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "Pr" or "prog" show up more?
"Pr" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,064 in our French list, against #30,751 for "prog". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Pr" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "prog" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #274,024 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Pr" and "prog" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "prep vs prog". 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 #274,024 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