prévôtvsprovostConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#26,147
“prévôt” frequency rank
#41,468
“provost” frequency rank
67615
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature prévôt provost
Definition Officier ou magistrat chargé d’une juridiction ou préposé à une haute surveillance. Variante de prevost.

Letter map: prévôt vs provost

Shared letters muted; letters that set prévôt and provost apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

6 ch
prévôt
7 ch
provost

Corpus notes: prévôt and provost

prévôt and provost are indexed as a confusable French pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67615, 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\. provost is at rank #41,468, tagged as anoun.

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 67615, this pair ranks #62,643 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of prévôt vs provost

Shared letters: prtv. Private to "prévôt": éô. Private to "provost": os.

"prévôt" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC  ·  "provost" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • provostporvost · pprovost · proovst · provosst · provostt · provots · provsot · provvost

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "prévôt" and "provost" be used interchangeably?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "prévôt" vs "provost" - which ranks higher?
"prévôt" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,147 in our French list, against #41,468 for "provost". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "prévôt" and "provost".

  • Full dictionary entry for "prévôt" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "provost" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #62,643 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "prévôt" and "provost" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "provoc vs provost". 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 #62,643 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