feelsvsfoulsWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#1,338
“feels” frequency rank
#23,837
“fouls” frequency rank
25175
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature feels fouls
Definition plural of feel, sensory perceptions that mainly or solely involve the sense of touch plural of foul

Where the eye mixes feels and fouls

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
feels
5 ch
fouls

Visual trap between feels and fouls

A purely visual mix-up. feels (/fiːlz/) and fouls (/faʊlz/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25175, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

feels is recorded at frequency rank #1,338, classified as anoun, pronounced /fiːlz/. fouls is at rank #23,837, tagged as anoun, pronounced /faʊlz/.

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 25175, this pair ranks #396,336 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of feels vs fouls

Shared letters: fls. Private to "feels": e. Private to "fouls": ou.

"feels" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "fouls" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • feelsefels · feells · feelss · feesl · feles · fels · ffeels
  • foulsffouls · folus · foulls · foulss · fousl · fuols · ofuls

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "feels" and "fouls" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/fiːlz/ versus /faʊlz/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary English text, does "feels" or "fouls" show up more?
"feels" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,338 in our English list, against #23,837 for "fouls". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "feels" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fouls" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #396,336 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "feels" and "fouls" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fou vs fouls". 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 #396,336 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