prièrevsprioriConfusable pair

Quick tell: prière is a noun, priori is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#3,789
“prière” frequency rank
#5,390
“priori” frequency rank
9179
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature prière priori
Definition Paroles par lesquelles on s’adresse à Dieu, ou à des intercesseurs. Datif singulier de prior.

Letter map: prière vs priori

Shared letters muted; letters that set prière and priori apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. prière and priori follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
prière
6 ch
priori

Role in the sentence - prière and priori

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: prière is anoun and priorianadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9179, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

prière is recorded at frequency rank #3,789, classified as anoun, pronounced \pʁi.jɛʁ\. priori is at rank #5,390, tagged as anadj.

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 9179, this pair ranks #417,543 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of prière vs priori

Shared letters: ipr. Private to "prière": eè. Private to "priori": o.

"prière" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCV  ·  "priori" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • priori ← pirori · ppriori · prioir · priorri · priroi · proiri · prriori · rpiori

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "prière" for "priori" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "prière" is a noun and "priori" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "prière" vs "priori" - which ranks higher?
"prière" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,789 in our French list, against #5,390 for "priori". 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 "prière" and "priori".

  • Full dictionary entry for "prière" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "priori" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #417,543 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "prière" and "priori" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "priée vs prière". 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 #417,543 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