favorsvsfavourTell them apart

Which to use

“favors” and “favour” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#10,546
“favors” frequency rank
#4,235
“favour” frequency rank
14781
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature favors favour
Definition plural of favor British standard spelling of favor.

Letter map: favors vs favour

Shared letters muted; letters that set favors and favour apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.

6 ch
favors
6 ch
favour

Corpus notes: favors and favour

favors and favour are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14781, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

favors is recorded at frequency rank #10,546, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈfeɪvɚz/. favour is at rank #4,235, 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 14781, this pair ranks #467,987 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of favors vs favour

Shared letters: aforv. Private to "favors": s. Private to "favour": u.

"favors" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC  ·  "favour" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • favorsafvors · faovrs · favorrs · favorss · favosr · favros · favvors · ffavors
  • favourafvour · faovur · favoru · favourr · favuor · favvour · ffavour · fvaour

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "favors" for "favour" ever safe?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "favors" vs "favour" - which ranks higher?
"favour" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,235 in our English list, against #10,546 for "favors". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "favors" and "favour". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "favors" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "favour" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #467,987 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "favors" and "favour" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Fars vs favors". 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 #467,987 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