faggotvsforgotTell them apart

Quick tell: faggot is a noun, forgot is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“faggot” is a noun and “forgot” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#15,406
“faggot” frequency rank
#2,347
“forgot” frequency rank
17753
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature faggot forgot
Definition A bundle of sticks or brushwood intended to be used for fuel tied together for carrying. (Some sources specify that a faggot is tied with two bands or withes, whereas a bavin is tied with just one.) simple past of forget

Where the eye mixes faggot and forgot

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
faggot
6 ch
forgot

Look-alike desk: faggot vs forgot

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: faggot is /ˈfæɡ.ət/ while forgot is /fəˈɡɒt/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17753, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

faggot is recorded at frequency rank #15,406, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈfæɡ.ət/. forgot is at rank #2,347, tagged as averb, pronounced /fəˈɡɒt/.

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 17753, this pair ranks #449,391 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of faggot vs forgot

Shared letters: fgot. Private to "faggot": a. Private to "forgot": r.

"faggot" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "forgot" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • faggotafggot · faggott · faggto · fagogt · fagot · ffaggot · fgagot
  • forgotfforgot · fogrot · forggot · forgott · forgto · forogt · forrgot · frogot

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "faggot" for "forgot" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "faggot" is a noun and "forgot" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "faggot" or "forgot"?
"forgot" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,347 in our English list, against #15,406 for "faggot". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "faggot" and "forgot" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "faggot" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "forgot" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #449,391 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "faggot" and "forgot" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "forego vs forgot". 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 #449,391 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list