Which to use
“fallow” and “fellow” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #35,715
- “fallow” frequency rank
- #1,791
- “fellow” frequency rank
- 37506
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | fallow | fellow |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Ground ploughed and harrowed but left unseeded for one year. | A companion; a comrade. |
Where the eye mixes fallow and fellow
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. fallow and fellow follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses fallow with fellow
A purely visual mix-up. fallow (/ˈfæləʊ/) and fellow (/ˈfɛləʊ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - a in “fallow” becomes e in “fellow”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37506, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
fallow is recorded at frequency rank #35,715, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈfæləʊ/. fellow is at rank #1,791, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈfɛləʊ/.
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 37506, this pair ranks #293,981 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of fallow vs fellow
Shared letters: flow. Private to "fallow": a. Private to "fellow": e.
"fallow" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "fellow" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "fallow" and "fellow" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "fallow" or "fellow" show up more?
Useful next steps
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "fallow" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "fellow" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #293,981 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "fallow" and "fellow" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fallow vs farrow". 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 #293,981 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.