preuvesvsprouvéeWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#2,540
“preuves” frequency rank
#22,988
“prouvée” frequency rank
25528
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature preuves prouvée
Definition Pluriel de preuve. Féminin singulier de prouvé.

Where the eye mixes preuves and prouvée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

7 ch
preuves
7 ch
prouvée

Look-alike desk: preuves vs prouvée

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: preuves is \pʁœv\ while prouvée is \pʁu.ve\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25528, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

preuves is recorded at frequency rank #2,540, classified as anoun, pronounced \pʁœv\. prouvée is at rank #22,988, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pʁu.ve\.

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 25528, this pair ranks #340,366 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of preuves vs prouvée

Shared letters: epruv. Private to "preuves": s. Private to "prouvée": .

"preuves" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCVC  ·  "prouvée" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • preuvesperuves · ppreuves · preuevs · preuvess · preuvse · preuvves · prevues · prreuves

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "preuves" and "prouvée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "preuves" is a noun and "prouvée" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "preuves" or "prouvée"?
"preuves" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,540 in our French list, against #22,988 for "prouvée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "preuves" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "prouvée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #340,366 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "preuves" and "prouvée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "prouvée vs prouvés". 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 #340,366 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