English homophones
faux/foe
"faux" (#13,914 written frequency) beats "foe" (#14,761) in this 2-word /fəʊ/ cluster. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Frequency splits the cluster
These 2 spellings keep the same /fəʊ/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "faux" leads at #13,914, with "foe" trailing at #14,761.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- No shared spelling stem: "faux" is 4 letters, "foe" is 3; only the sound ties them.
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across faux, foe: f. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
faux
4 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVVC
Inventory afux · private aux
foe
3 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVV
Inventory efo · private eo
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "faux" when you mean: Fake or artificial.
- Write "foe" when you mean: Hostile.
Known mistypes of these spellings
Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.
- faux ← afux · fauxx · faxu · ffaux · fuax
Each spelling
Nearby English homophone groups
What to do next
You've reviewed the 2-spelling cluster (faux, foe). Here's where to go from here.
- "faux" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #13,914 in English). Full entry
- Among English homophone groups, a cluster of 2 spellings ranks #133 by size (1,007 groups in this vintage). Corpus statistics
- Explore a nearby 2-spelling cluster: flak · flack. Nearby cluster
- Each spelling in "faux, foe" has its own headword page with definition, IPA, and misspelling variants. First entry
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.