Which to use
“fear” is a noun and “few” is a determiner - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #1,184
- “fear” frequency rank
- #226
- “few” frequency rank
- 1410
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | fear | few |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A strong, unpleasant emotion or feeling caused by actual or perceived danger or threat. | An indefinite, but usually small, number of. |
Where the eye mixes fear and few
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between fear and few
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: fear is /fɪə/ while few is /fjuː/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs determiner), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1410, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
fear is recorded at frequency rank #1,184, classified as anoun, pronounced /fɪə/. few is at rank #226, tagged as adet, pronounced /fjuː/.
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 1410, this pair ranks #527,488 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of fear vs few
Shared letters: ef. Private to "fear": ar. Private to "few": w.
"fear" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "few" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- fear ← efar · faer · fearr · fera · ffear
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "fear" for "few" ever safe?
Frequency check: "fear" vs "few" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "fear" and "few" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "fear" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "few" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #527,488 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "fear" and "few" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fear vs Fenn". 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 #527,488 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.