felonvsflogConfusable pair

Quick tell: felon is a adjective, flog is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“felon” is an adjective and “flog” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#23,270
“felon” frequency rank
#41,629
“flog” frequency rank
64899
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature felon flog
Definition Of a person or animal, their actions, thoughts, etc.: brutal, cruel, harsh, heartless; also, evil, wicked. To whip or scourge as punishment.

Where the eye mixes felon and flog

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. felon runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against flog's 4 (CCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
felon
4 ch
flog

Visual trap between felon and flog

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: felon is /ˈfɛlən/ while flog is /flɒɡ/. 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 (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64899, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

felon is recorded at frequency rank #23,270, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈfɛlən/. flog is at rank #41,629, tagged as averb, pronounced /flɒɡ/.

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 64899, this pair ranks #75,389 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of felon vs flog

Shared letters: flo. Private to "felon": en. Private to "flog": g.

"felon" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "flog" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • felon ← eflon · fellon · felno · felonn · feoln · ffelon · fleon
  • flog ← fflog · flgo · fllog · flogg · folg · lfog

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "felon" and "flog" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "felon" is an adjective and "flog" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "felon" or "flog"?
"felon" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,270 in our English list, against #41,629 for "flog". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "felon" and "flog" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "felon" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "flog" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #75,389 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "felon" and "flog" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "flog vs foh". 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 #75,389 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