propvspropreWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#41,465
“prop” frequency rank
#513
“propre” frequency rank
41978
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature prop propre
Definition Pilier, pieu, poteau Qui est particulier à une personne ou à une chose (exclusivement ou non).

Letter map: prop vs propre

Shared letters muted; letters that set prop and propre apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

4 ch
prop
6 ch
propre

Role in the sentence - prop and propre

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: prop is anoun and propreanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “prop” sits inside “propre”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41978, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

prop is recorded at frequency rank #41,465, classified as anoun. propre is at rank #513, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pʁɔpʁ\.

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 41978, this pair ranks #229,118 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of prop vs propre

Shared letters: opr. Private to "prop": -. Private to "propre": e.

"prop" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "propre" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • propporp · pprop · propp · prpo · prrop · rpop
  • propreporpre · ppropre · proper · proppre · proprre · prorpe · prpore · prropre

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "prop" for "propre" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "prop" is a noun and "propre" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "prop" vs "propre" - which ranks higher?
"propre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #513 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.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "prop" and "propre".

  • Full dictionary entry for "prop" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "propre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #229,118 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "prop" and "propre" 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 #229,118 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