preuvesvsprouvéesWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#2,540
“preuves” frequency rank
#39,475
“prouvées” frequency rank
42015
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature preuves prouvées
Definition Pluriel de preuve. Participe passé féminin pluriel de prouver.

Where the eye mixes preuves and prouvées

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.

7 ch
preuves
8 ch
prouvées

Visual trap between preuves and prouvées

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: preuves is \pʁœv\ while prouvées is \pʁu.ve\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42015, 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\. prouvées is at rank #39,475, tagged as averb, 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 42015, this pair ranks #228,841 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of preuves vs prouvées

Shared letters: eprsuv. Private to "preuves": -. Private to "prouvées": .

"preuves" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCVC  ·  "prouvées" · 8 letters · shape CCVVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "preuves" for "prouvées" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "preuves" is a noun and "prouvées" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "preuves" or "prouvées" show up more?
"preuves" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,540 in our French list, against #39,475 for "prouvées". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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 "preuves" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "prouvées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #228,841 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "preuves" and "prouvées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "prouvées 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 #228,841 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