Which to use
“fail” is a verb and “foi” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #2,441
- “fail” frequency rank
- #42,644
- “foi” frequency rank
- 45085
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | fail | foi |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | To be unsuccessful. | A depiction of a handshake. |
Letter map: fail vs foi
Shared letters muted; letters that set fail and foi apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. fail runs 4 letters (CVVC) against foi's 3 (CVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Part-of-speech tell for fail / foi
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: fail is averb and foianoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45085, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
fail is recorded at frequency rank #2,441, classified as averb, pronounced /feɪl/. foi is at rank #42,644, tagged as anoun.
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 45085, this pair ranks #224,563 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of fail vs foi
Shared letters: fi. Private to "fail": al. Private to "foi": o.
"fail" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "foi" · 3 letters · shape CVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- fail ← afil · faill · fali · ffail · fial
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "fail" for "foi" ever safe?
Frequency check: "fail" vs "foi" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Pair "fail" vs "foi" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "fail" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "foi" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #224,563 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "fail" and "foi" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "foi vs FOMO". 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 #224,563 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.