farvsFCOWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: far is a adjective, FCO is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“far” is an adjective and “FCO” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#295
“far” frequency rank
#49,916
“FCO” frequency rank
50211
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature far FCO
Definition Distant; remote in space. Initialism of Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Letter map: far vs FCO

Shared letters muted; letters that set far and FCO apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch
far
3 ch
FCO

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: far is anadjective and FCOaname. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50211, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

far is recorded at frequency rank #295, classified as anadj, pronounced /fɑː/. FCO is at rank #49,916, tagged as aname.

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 50211, this pair ranks #176,313 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of far vs FCO

Shared letters: f. Private to "far": ar. Private to "FCO": co.

"far" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "FCO" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "far" and "FCO" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "far" is an adjective and "FCO" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "far" or "FCO"?
"far" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #295 in our English list, against #49,916 for "FCO". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list