prévoyantvsprévoyonsTell them apart

Quick tell: prévoyant is a adjective, prévoyons is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“prévoyant” is an adjective and “prévoyons” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#15,470
“prévoyant” frequency rank
#46,377
“prévoyons” frequency rank
61847
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature prévoyant prévoyons
Definition Qui juge par avance qu'une chose devrait arriver. Première personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent de prévoir.

Where the eye mixes prévoyant and prévoyons

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. prévoyant and prévoyons follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCVVVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

9 ch
prévoyant
9 ch
prévoyons

Look-alike desk: prévoyant vs prévoyons

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: prévoyant is \pʁe.vwa.jɑ̃\ while prévoyons is \pʁe.vwa.jɔ̃\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 61847, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

prévoyant is recorded at frequency rank #15,470, classified as anadj, pronounced \pʁe.vwa.jɑ̃\. prévoyons is at rank #46,377, tagged as averb, pronounced \pʁe.vwa.jɔ̃\.

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 61847, this pair ranks #90,120 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of prévoyant vs prévoyons

Shared letters: noprvyé. Private to "prévoyant": at. Private to "prévoyons": s.

"prévoyant" · 9 letters · shape CCVCVVVCC  ·  "prévoyons" · 9 letters · shape CCVCVVVCC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "prévoyant" and "prévoyons" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "prévoyant" is an adjective and "prévoyons" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "prévoyant" or "prévoyons" show up more?
"prévoyant" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,470 in our French list, against #46,377 for "prévoyons". 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 "prévoyant" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "prévoyons" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #90,120 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "prévoyant" and "prévoyons" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "prévoyaient vs prévoyant". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #90,120 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