provoquavsprovoquésTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#29,490
“provoqua” frequency rank
#22,381
“provoqués” frequency rank
51871
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature provoqua provoqués
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de provoquer. Masculin pluriel de provoqué.

Where the eye mixes provoqua and provoqués

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. provoqua runs 8 letters (CCVCVCVV) against provoqués's 9 (CCVCVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
provoqua
9 ch
provoqués

Look-alike desk: provoqua vs provoqués

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: provoqua is \pʁɔ.vɔ.ka\ while provoqués is \pʁɔ.vɔ.ke\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51871, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

provoqua is recorded at frequency rank #29,490, classified as averb, pronounced \pʁɔ.vɔ.ka\. provoqués is at rank #22,381, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pʁɔ.vɔ.ke\.

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 51871, this pair ranks #151,836 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of provoqua vs provoqués

Shared letters: opqruv. Private to "provoqua": a. Private to "provoqués": .

"provoqua" · 8 letters · shape CCVCVCVV  ·  "provoqués" · 9 letters · shape CCVCVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • provoquaporvoqua · pprovoqua · proovqua · provoqau · provoqqua · provouqa · provqoua · provvoqua

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "provoqua" for "provoqués" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "provoqua" is a verb and "provoqués" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "provoqua" or "provoqués" show up more?
"provoqués" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,381 in our French list, against #29,490 for "provoqua". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "provoqua" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "provoqués" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #151,836 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "provoqua" and "provoqués" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "provoqua vs provoquait". 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 #151,836 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