provspropWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#1,039
“pro” frequency rank
#41,465
“prop” frequency rank
42504
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pro prop
Definition Professionnel, professionnelle. Pilier, pieu, poteau

Letter map: pro vs prop

Shared letters muted; letters that set pro and prop apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

3 ch
pro
4 ch
prop

Corpus notes: pro and prop

pro and prop are indexed as a confusable French pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “pro” sits inside “prop”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42504, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pro is recorded at frequency rank #1,039, classified as anoun, pronounced \pʁo\. prop is at rank #41,465, tagged as anoun.

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 42504, this pair ranks #225,116 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pro vs prop

Shared letters: opr. Private to "pro": -. Private to "prop": -.

"pro" · 3 letters · shape CCV  ·  "prop" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • propporp · pprop · propp · prpo · prrop · rpop

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pro" for "prop" ever safe?
No. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “pro” sits inside “prop”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "pro" vs "prop" - which ranks higher?
"pro" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,039 in our French list, against #41,465 for "prop". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "pro" vs "prop" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pro" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "prop" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #225,116 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pro" and "prop" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "prep vs prop". 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 #225,116 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