Which to use
“près” is an adverb and “pros” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #294
- “près” frequency rank
- #10,766
- “pros” frequency rank
- 11060
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | près | pros |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | À petite distance, à proximité. | Pluriel de pro. |
Where the eye mixes près and pros
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between près and pros
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: près is \pʁɛ\ while pros is \pʁo\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - è in “près” becomes o in “pros”, and the parts of speech differ too (adverb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11060, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
près is recorded at frequency rank #294, classified as anadv, pronounced \pʁɛ\. pros is at rank #10,766, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pʁo\.
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 11060, this pair ranks #410,620 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of près vs pros
Shared letters: prs. Private to "près": è. Private to "pros": o.
"près" · 4 letters · shape CCVC · "pros" · 4 letters · shape CCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- pros ← pors · ppros · pross · prros · prso · rpos
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "près" and "pros" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "près" or "pros"?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "près" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "pros" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #410,620 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "près" and "pros" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "prep vs pros". 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 #410,620 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.