prévôtvsprovocWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#26,147
“prévôt” frequency rank
#39,476
“provoc” frequency rank
65623
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature prévôt provoc
Definition Officier ou magistrat chargé d’une juridiction ou préposé à une haute surveillance. Provocation.

Where the eye mixes prévôt and provoc

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. prévôt and provoc follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
prévôt
6 ch
provoc

Look-alike desk: prévôt vs provoc

A purely visual mix-up. prévôt (\pʁe.vo\) and provoc (\pʁɔ.vɔk\) 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 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 65623, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

prévôt is recorded at frequency rank #26,147, classified as anoun, pronounced \pʁe.vo\. provoc is at rank #39,476, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pʁɔ.vɔk\.

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 65623, this pair ranks #71,516 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of prévôt vs provoc

Shared letters: prv. Private to "prévôt": téô. Private to "provoc": co.

"prévôt" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC  ·  "provoc" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • provoc ← porvoc · pprovoc · proovc · provco · provocc · provvoc · prrovoc · prvooc

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "prévôt" and "provoc" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\pʁe.vo\ versus \pʁɔ.vɔk\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "prévôt" or "provoc"?
"prévôt" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,147 in our French list, against #39,476 for "provoc". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "prévôt" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "provoc" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #71,516 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "prévôt" and "provoc" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "proof vs provoc". 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 #71,516 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