priéevspriorWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: priée is a verb, prior is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#49,295
“priée” frequency rank
#43,083
“prior” frequency rank
92378
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature priée prior
Definition Participe passé féminin singulier de prier. Antérieur, préalable.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set priée and prior apart are highlighted. They share 3 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

5 ch
priée
5 ch
prior

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: priée is \pʁi.je\ while prior is \ˈpɹaɪ.ə\. 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 (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 92378, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

priée is recorded at frequency rank #49,295, classified as averb, pronounced \pʁi.je\. prior is at rank #43,083, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ˈpɹaɪ.ə\.

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 92378, this pair ranks #3,047 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of priée vs prior

Shared letters: ipr. Private to "priée": . Private to "prior": o.

"priée" · 5 letters · shape CCVVV  ·  "prior" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • priorpiror · pprior · priorr · priro · proir · prrior · rpior

Frequency comparison

priée#49,295
prior#43,083

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "priée" and "prior" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "priée" is a verb and "prior" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "priée" or "prior"?
"prior" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #43,083 in our French list, against #49,295 for "priée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering priée vs prior

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Check the role first: if you need a verb, it's “priée”; for an adjective, it's “prior”.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “priée” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list