feetvsfleetWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#1,105
“feet” frequency rank
#4,084
“fleet” frequency rank
5189
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature feet fleet
Definition plural of foot A group of vessels or vehicles.

Where the eye mixes feet and fleet

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

4 ch
feet
5 ch
fleet

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. feet (/fiːt/) and fleet (/fliːt/) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5189, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

feet is recorded at frequency rank #1,105, classified as anoun, pronounced /fiːt/. fleet is at rank #4,084, tagged as anoun, pronounced /fliːt/.

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 5189, this pair ranks #516,261 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of feet vs fleet

Shared letters: eft. Private to "feet": -. Private to "fleet": l.

"feet" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "fleet" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • feetefet · feett · ffeet
  • fleetfelet · ffleet · fleett · flete · flleet · lfeet

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "feet" and "fleet" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/fiːt/ versus /fliːt/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "feet" or "fleet"?
"feet" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,105 in our English list, against #4,084 for "fleet". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list