Floe or flow?
floe is a noun meaning “A low, flat mass of floating ice”; flow is a noun meaning “Movement in people or things characterized with a continuous motion, involving…”. They sound the same (/fləʊ/). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) flow is about 339 times as common as floe.
What is the difference between floe and flow?
| floe | flow | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun | noun, verb |
| Meaning | A low, flat mass of floating ice | Movement in people or things characterized with a continuous motion, involving either a non solid mass or a multitude The movement of a real or figurative fluid To move as a fluid from one position to another |
| Example | none recorded | The notion of flow is basic to the study of ordinary differential equations |
| Forms | floes | flows |
| Pronunciation | /fləʊ/ /floʊ/ | /ˈfləʊ̯/ [ˈfləʊ̯] /ˈflɵʊ̯/ |
| In writing | about once in every 7 million words | 48 times per million words |
Sources: floe and flow in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of floe and flow
floe
- 1
A low, flat mass of floating ice
flow
- 1
Movement in people or things characterized with a continuous motion, involving either a non solid mass or a multitude
- 2
To move as a fluid from one position to another
Rivers flow from springs and lakes
- 3
ScotlandA bog or mire, especially a rough, waterlogged one
Had been roughly laid with bog-wood dug from the flowes
- 4
The movement of a real or figurative fluid
- 5
To proceed; to issue forth; to emanate
Wealth flows from industry and economy
- 6
A formalization of the idea of the motion of particles in a fluid, as a group action of the real numbers on a set
The notion of flow is basic to the study of ordinary differential equations
- 7
To move or match smoothly, gracefully, or continuously
The writing is grammatically correct, but it just doesn't flow
- 8
The rising movement of the tide
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, floe or flow?
floe appears about once in every 7 million words; flow 48 times per million words.
floe about once in every 7 million wordsflow 48 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search floe vs flow?
“floe vs flow” is searched about 30 times a month on Google and 10 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“flow vs floe”, “floe or flow”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.