fairvsfoieWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: fair is a adjective, foie is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#1,104
“fair” frequency rank
#42,645
“foie” frequency rank
43749
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fair foie
Definition Beautiful, of a pleasing appearance, with a pure and fresh quality. Ellipsis of foie gras.

Letter map: fair vs foie

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

4 ch
fair
4 ch
foie

Grammar separator: fair vs foie

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: fair is anadjective and foieanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43749, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fair is recorded at frequency rank #1,104, classified as anadj, pronounced /fɛə/. 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 43749, this pair ranks #237,042 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of fair vs foie

Shared letters: fi. Private to "fair": ar. Private to "foie": eo.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fair ← afir · fairr · fari · ffair · fiar
  • foie ← ffoie · fioe · foei · ofie

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "fair" and "foie" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fair" is an adjective and "foie" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "fair" or "foie" show up more?
"fair" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,104 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.

What to do next

Pair "fair" vs "foie" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "fair" 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 #237,042 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fair" 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 #237,042 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