Which to use
“felt” and “file” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #770
- “felt” frequency rank
- #1,825
- “file” frequency rank
- 2595
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | felt | file |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A cloth or stuff made of matted fibres of wool, or wool and fur, fulled or wrought into a compact substance by rolling and pressure, with lees or size, without spinning or weaving. | A collection of papers collated and archived together. |
Where the eye mixes felt and file
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. felt (/ˈfɛlt/) and file (/faɪl/) 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 2595, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
felt is recorded at frequency rank #770, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈfɛlt/. file is at rank #1,825, tagged as anoun, pronounced /faɪl/.
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 2595, this pair ranks #524,566 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of felt vs file
Shared letters: efl. Private to "felt": t. Private to "file": i.
"felt" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "file" · 4 letters · shape CVCV