premvsprogWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#44,108
“prem” frequency rank
#30,751
“prog” frequency rank
74859
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature prem prog
Definition Confusion, fatras, fouillis, enchevêtrement, mêlée. Programmation.

Where the eye mixes prem and prog

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

4 ch
prem
4 ch
prog

Look-alike desk: prem vs prog

A purely visual mix-up. prem (\prɛm\) 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 share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 74859, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

prem is recorded at frequency rank #44,108, classified as anoun, pronounced \prɛm\. 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 74859, this pair ranks #35,800 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of prem vs prog

Shared letters: pr. Private to "prem": em. Private to "prog": go.

"prem" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "prog" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • prempprem · premm · prme · prrem · rpem
  • progporg · pprog · prgo · progg · prrog · rpog

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "prem" for "prog" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\prɛm\ versus \pʁɔɡ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "prem" or "prog"?
"prog" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,751 in our French list, against #44,108 for "prem". 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 "prem" 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 #35,800 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "prem" and "prog" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "prem vs prep". 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 #35,800 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