provoquévsprovoquerTell them apart

Which to use

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

#5,909
“provoqué” frequency rank
#4,366
“provoquer” frequency rank
10275
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature provoqué provoquer
Definition Participe passé masculin singulier du verbe provoquer. Inciter, exciter.

Same sound, different letters: provoqué vs provoquer

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters.

8 ch
provoqué
9 ch
provoquer

Same sound, different spelling - provoqué / provoquer

This is the hard kind. provoqué and provoquer are pronounced identically (\pʁɔ.vɔ.ke\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10275, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

provoqué is recorded at frequency rank #5,909, classified as averb, pronounced \pʁɔ.vɔ.ke\. provoquer is at rank #4,366, tagged as averb, 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 10275, this pair ranks #413,598 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of provoqué vs provoquer

Shared letters: opqruv. Private to "provoqué": é. Private to "provoquer": e.

"provoqué" · 8 letters · shape CCVCVCVV  ·  "provoquer" · 9 letters · shape CCVCVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • provoquerporvoquer · pprovoquer · proovquer · provoqeur · provoqquer · provoquerr · provoqure · provouqer

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "provoqué" and "provoquer" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\pʁɔ.vɔ.ke\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "provoqué" vs "provoquer" - which ranks higher?
"provoquer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,366 in our French list, against #5,909 for "provoqué". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've separated the homophone pair "provoqué" / "provoquer". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "provoqué" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "provoquer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #413,598 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "provoqué" and "provoquer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "provoqué vs provoquera". 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 #413,598 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