prouvervsprouvésTell them apart

Quick tell: prouver is a verb, prouvés is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“prouver” is a verb and “prouvés” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2,443
“prouver” frequency rank
#46,969
“prouvés” frequency rank
49412
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature prouver prouvés
Definition Établir la vérité de quelque chose par le raisonnement ou par le témoignage. Masculin pluriel de prouvé.

Same sound, different letters: prouver vs prouvés

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. prouver and prouvés follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
prouver
7 ch
prouvés

Homophone desk: prouver vs prouvés

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: prouver and prouvés carry the same recorded pronunciation, \pʁu.ve\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49412, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

prouver is recorded at frequency rank #2,443, classified as averb, pronounced \pʁu.ve\. prouvés is at rank #46,969, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pʁu.ve\.

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 49412, this pair ranks #170,887 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of prouver vs prouvés

Shared letters: opruv. Private to "prouver": e. Private to "prouvés": sé.

"prouver" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCVC  ·  "prouvés" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • prouver ← poruver · pprouver · prouevr · prouverr · prouvre · prouvver · provuer · prrouver

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "prouver" and "prouvés" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "prouver" is a verb and "prouvés" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "prouver" vs "prouvés" - which ranks higher?
"prouver" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,443 in our French list, against #46,969 for "prouvés". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

"prouver" and "prouvés" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "prouver" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "prouvés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #170,887 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "prouver" and "prouvés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "prouvées 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 #170,887 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