pressévsprévueWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#6,643
“pressé” frequency rank
#3,561
“prévue” frequency rank
10204
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pressé prévue
Definition Qui est empressé, désireux, impatient. Féminin singulier de prévu.

Where the eye mixes pressé and prévue

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

6 ch
pressé
6 ch
prévue

Look-alike desk: pressé vs prévue

A purely visual mix-up. pressé (\pʁe.se\) and prévue (\pʁe.vy\) 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 4 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10204, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pressé is recorded at frequency rank #6,643, classified as anadj, pronounced \pʁe.se\. prévue is at rank #3,561, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pʁe.vy\.

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 10204, this pair ranks #413,835 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of pressé vs prévue

Shared letters: epré. Private to "pressé": s. Private to "prévue": uv.

"pressé" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV  ·  "prévue" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pressé" for "prévue" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\pʁe.se\ versus \pʁe.vy\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "pressé" or "prévue" show up more?
"prévue" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,561 in our French list, against #6,643 for "pressé". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pressé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "prévue" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #413,835 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pressé" and "prévue" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "poreuse vs pressé". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #413,835 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