feu vs fou, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“feu” is a noun and “fou” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#43,641
“feu” frequency rank: #48,244
“fou” frequency rank: 91885
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	feu	fou
Definition	Land held in feudal tenure.	Drunk.

Letter map: feu vs fou

Shared letters muted; letters that set feu and fou apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. feu and fou follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

3 ch

feu

3 ch

fou

Grammar separator: feu vs fou

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: feu is anoun and fouanadjective. On the page they differ by a single letter - e in “feu” becomes o in “fou”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 91885, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

feu is recorded at frequency rank #43,641, classified as anoun, pronounced /fjuː/. fou is at rank #48,244, tagged as anadj.

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 91885, this pair ranks #2,995 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of feu vs fou

Shared letters: fu. Private to "feu": e. Private to "fou": o.

"feu" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "fou" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "feu" and "fou" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "feu" is a noun and "fou" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary English text, does "feu" or "fou" show up more?

"feu" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #43,641 in our English list, against #48,244 for "fou". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "feu" and "fou".

Full dictionary entry for "feu" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "fou" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #2,995 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"feu" and "fou" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "FOMO vs fou". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #2,995 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.