prendvsprintTell them apart

Quick tell: prend is a verb, print is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“prend” is a verb and “print” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#420
“prend” frequency rank
#25,447
“print” frequency rank
25867
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature prend print
Definition Troisième personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent du verbe prendre. Dans la presse, ce qui est imprimé sur papier, par opposition à la forme numérique.

Where the eye mixes prend and print

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
prend
5 ch
print

Visual trap between prend and print

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: prend is \pʁɑ̃\ while print is \pʁint\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25867, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

prend is recorded at frequency rank #420, classified as averb, pronounced \pʁɑ̃\. print is at rank #25,447, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pʁint\.

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 25867, this pair ranks #338,426 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of prend vs print

Shared letters: npr. Private to "prend": de. Private to "print": it.

"prend" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "print" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • prendpernd · pprend · predn · prendd · prennd · prned · prrend · rpend
  • printpirnt · pprint · prinnt · printt · pritn · prnit · prrint · rpint

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "prend" and "print" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "prend" is a verb and "print" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "prend" or "print" show up more?
"prend" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #420 in our French list, against #25,447 for "print". 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 "prend" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "print" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #338,426 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "prend" and "print" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "priée vs print". 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 #338,426 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