fail vs foie, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#2,441
“fail” frequency rank: #42,645
“foie” frequency rank: 45086
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	fail	foie
Definition	To be unsuccessful.	Ellipsis of foie gras.

Letter map: fail vs foie

Shared letters muted; letters that set fail and foie apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. fail (CVVC) and foie (CVVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch

fail

4 ch

foie

Grammar separator: fail vs foie

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: fail is averb and foieanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45086, 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/. foie is at rank #42,645, 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 45086, this pair ranks #224,553 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of fail vs foie

Shared letters: fi. Private to "fail": al. Private to "foie": eo.

"fail" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "foie" · 4 letters · shape CVVV

Known mistypes of this pair

fail ← afil · faill · fali · ffail · fial
foie ← ffoie · fioe · foei · ofie

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "fail" for "foie" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fail" is a verb and "foie" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary English text, does "fail" or "foie" show up more?

"fail" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,441 in our English list, against #42,645 for "foie". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

You've compared "fail" and "foie". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "fail" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "foie" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #224,553 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"fail" and "foie" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "foie 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 #224,553 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.