prisvspursTell them apart

Which to use

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

#302
“pris” frequency rank
#16,711
“purs” frequency rank
17013
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pris purs
Definition Occupé, pas disponible. Masculin pluriel de pur.

Where the eye mixes pris and purs

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
pris
4 ch
purs

Visual trap between pris and purs

A purely visual mix-up. pris (\pʁi\) and purs (\pyʁ\) 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 17013, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pris is recorded at frequency rank #302, classified as anadj, pronounced \pʁi\. purs is at rank #16,711, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pyʁ\.

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 17013, this pair ranks #385,209 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of pris vs purs

Shared letters: prs. Private to "pris": i. Private to "purs": u.

"pris" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "purs" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • prispirs · ppris · priss · prris · prsi · rpis
  • pursppurs · prus · purrs · purss · pusr · uprs

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pris" for "purs" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\pʁi\ versus \pyʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "pris" or "purs"?
"pris" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #302 in our French list, against #16,711 for "purs". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "pris" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "purs" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #385,209 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pris" and "purs" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "PMR vs purs". 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 #385,209 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