prévusvsprimusTell them apart

Quick tell: prévus is a adjective, primus is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“prévus” is an adjective and “primus” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#6,427
“prévus” frequency rank
#45,244
“primus” frequency rank
51671
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature prévus primus
Definition Masculin pluriel de prévu. Réchaud à pétrole pressurisé par une pompe manuelle

Where the eye mixes prévus and primus

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
prévus
6 ch
primus

Visual trap between prévus and primus

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: prévus is \pʁe.vy\ while primus is \pʁi.mys\. 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 noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51671, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

prévus is recorded at frequency rank #6,427, classified as anadj, pronounced \pʁe.vy\. primus is at rank #45,244, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pʁi.mys\.

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 51671, this pair ranks #153,285 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of prévus vs primus

Shared letters: prsu. Private to "prévus": . Private to "primus": im.

"prévus" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC  ·  "primus" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • primuspirmus · pprimus · primmus · primsu · primuss · priums · prmius · prrimus

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "prévus" and "primus" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "prévus" is an adjective and "primus" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "prévus" vs "primus" - which ranks higher?
"prévus" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,427 in our French list, against #45,244 for "primus". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "prévus" and "primus" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "prévus" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "primus" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #153,285 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "prévus" and "primus" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "primeurs vs primus". 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 #153,285 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