prémicesvspremièresWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: prémices is a noun, premières is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“prémices” is a noun and “premières” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#23,995
“prémices” frequency rank
#949
“premières” frequency rank
24944
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature prémices premières
Definition Dans l'Antiquité, premiers produits de la terre ou du bétail donnés en offrande à une divinité. Féminin pluriel de premier.

Where the eye mixes prémices and premières

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. prémices runs 8 letters (CCVCVCVC) against premières's 9 (CCVCVVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
prémices
9 ch
premières

Why the eye confuses prémices with premières

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: prémices is \pʁe.mis\ while premières is \pʁə.mjɛʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24944, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

prémices is recorded at frequency rank #23,995, classified as anoun, pronounced \pʁe.mis\. premières is at rank #949, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pʁə.mjɛʁ\.

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 24944, this pair ranks #343,666 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of prémices vs premières

Shared letters: eimprs. Private to "prémices": cé. Private to "premières": è.

"prémices" · 8 letters · shape CCVCVCVC  ·  "premières" · 9 letters · shape CCVCVVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "prémices" and "premières" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "prémices" is a noun and "premières" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "prémices" vs "premières" - which ranks higher?
"premières" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #949 in our French list, against #23,995 for "prémices". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "prémices" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "premières" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #343,666 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "prémices" and "premières" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "prémices vs prémisse". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #343,666 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