Which to use
“province” and “provinces” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #1,339
- “province” frequency rank
- #3,213
- “provinces” frequency rank
- 4552
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | province | provinces |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Étendue de pays qui fait partie d’un État et qui possède plusieurs villes, bourgs, villages, etc., sous un même gouvernement. | Pluriel de province. |
Same sound, different letters: province vs provinces
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters.
Same sound, different spelling - province / provinces
This is the hard kind. province and provinces are pronounced identically (\pʁɔ.vɛ̃s\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “province” sits inside “provinces”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4552, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
province is recorded at frequency rank #1,339, classified as anoun, pronounced \pʁɔ.vɛ̃s\. provinces is at rank #3,213, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pʁɔ.vɛ̃s\.
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 4552, this pair ranks #431,326 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of province vs provinces
Shared letters: ceinoprv. Private to "province": -. Private to "provinces": s.
"province" · 8 letters · shape CCVCVCCV · "provinces" · 9 letters · shape CCVCVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "province" and "provinces" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "province" vs "provinces" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
"province" and "provinces" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "province" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "provinces" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #431,326 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "province" and "provinces" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "provinces vs provins". 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 #431,326 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.