prouvevsprouventTell them apart

Which to use

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

#3,490
“prouve” frequency rank
#11,278
“prouvent” frequency rank
14768
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature prouve prouvent
Definition Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de prouver. Troisième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de prouver.

Same sound, different letters: prouve vs prouvent

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. prouve runs 6 letters (CCVVCV) against prouvent's 8 (CCVVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
prouve
8 ch
prouvent

Ear matches; page differs - prouve and prouvent

This is the hard kind. prouve and prouvent are pronounced identically (\pʁuv\) and both work as averb. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “prouve” sits inside “prouvent”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14768, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

prouve is recorded at frequency rank #3,490, classified as averb, pronounced \pʁuv\. prouvent is at rank #11,278, tagged as averb, pronounced \pʁuv\.

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 14768, this pair ranks #395,302 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of prouve vs prouvent

Shared letters: eopruv. Private to "prouve": -. Private to "prouvent": nt.

"prouve" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCV  ·  "prouvent" · 8 letters · shape CCVVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • prouve ← poruve · pprouve · prouev · prouvve · provue · prrouve · pruove · rpouve
  • prouvent ← poruvent · pprouvent · prouevnt · prouvennt · prouventt · prouvetn · prouvnet · prouvvent

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "prouve" and "prouvent" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\pʁuv\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
In ordinary French text, does "prouve" or "prouvent" show up more?
"prouve" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,490 in our French list, against #11,278 for "prouvent". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "prouve" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "prouvent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #395,302 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "prouve" and "prouvent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "prouvent vs prouvés". 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 #395,302 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