prévuvsprévusWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#1,401
“prévu” frequency rank
#6,427
“prévus” frequency rank
7828
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature prévu prévus
Definition Qui a été prévu, à quoi l’on s’attend. Masculin pluriel de prévu.

Same sound, different letters: prévu vs prévus

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters.

5 ch
prévu
6 ch
prévus

Ear matches; page differs - prévu and prévus

This is the hard kind. prévu and prévus are pronounced identically (\pʁe.vy\) and both work as anadjective. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “prévu” sits inside “prévus”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 7828, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

prévu is recorded at frequency rank #1,401, classified as anadj, pronounced \pʁe.vy\. prévus is at rank #6,427, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pʁe.vy\.

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 7828, this pair ranks #422,009 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of prévu vs prévus

Shared letters: pruvé. Private to "prévu": -. Private to "prévus": s.

"prévu" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "prévus" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "prévu" and "prévus" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\pʁe.vy\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Which is more common, "prévu" or "prévus"?
"prévu" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,401 in our French list, against #6,427 for "prévus". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "prévu" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "prévus" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #422,009 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "prévu" and "prévus" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "prépas vs prévus". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #422,009 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