Which to use
“près” and “prou” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #294
- “près” frequency rank
- #27,198
- “prou” frequency rank
- 27492
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | près | prou |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | À petite distance, à proximité. | Assez, beaucoup. |
Where the eye mixes près and prou
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: près vs prou
A purely visual mix-up. près (\pʁɛ\) and prou (\pʁu\) 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 27492, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
près is recorded at frequency rank #294, classified as anadv, pronounced \pʁɛ\. prou is at rank #27,198, tagged as anadv, pronounced \pʁu\.
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 27492, this pair ranks #328,624 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of près vs prou
Shared letters: pr. Private to "près": sè. Private to "prou": ou.
"près" · 4 letters · shape CCVC · "prou" · 4 letters · shape CCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- prou ← pprou · prrou · pruo · rpou
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "près" and "prou" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary French text, does "près" or "prou" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "près" and "prou" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "près" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "prou" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #328,624 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "près" and "prou" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "prep vs prou". 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 #328,624 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.