princevspriséeTell them apart

Which to use

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

#1,338
“prince” frequency rank
#28,698
“prisée” frequency rank
30036
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature prince prisée
Definition Celui qui est d’une maison souveraine. Estimation faite d’une chose qui doit être vendue ou inventoriée.

Where the eye mixes prince and prisée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. prince (CCVCCV) and prisée (CCVCVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
prince
6 ch
prisée

Look-alike desk: prince vs prisée

A purely visual mix-up. prince (\pʁɛ̃s\) and prisée (\pʁi.ze\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30036, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

prince is recorded at frequency rank #1,338, classified as anoun, pronounced \pʁɛ̃s\. prisée is at rank #28,698, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pʁi.ze\.

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 30036, this pair ranks #312,872 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of prince vs prisée

Shared letters: eipr. Private to "prince": cn. Private to "prisée": sé.

"prince" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV  ·  "prisée" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • prince ← pirnce · pprince · pricne · princce · prinec · prinnce · prnice · prrince

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "prince" for "prisée" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\pʁɛ̃s\ versus \pʁi.ze\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "prince" vs "prisée" - which ranks higher?
"prince" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,338 in our French list, against #28,698 for "prisée". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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 "prince" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "prisée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #312,872 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "prince" and "prisée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "priée vs prisée". 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 #312,872 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