foe vs FSB, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“foe” is an adjective and “FSB” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#14,761
“foe” frequency rank: #32,815
“FSB” frequency rank: 47576
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	foe	FSB
Definition	Hostile.	The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation.

Letter map: foe vs FSB

Shared letters muted; letters that set foe and FSB apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

foe

3 ch

FSB

Role in the sentence - foe and FSB

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: foe is anadjective and FSBaname. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47576, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

foe is recorded at frequency rank #14,761, classified as anadj, pronounced /fəʊ/. FSB is at rank #32,815, tagged as aname.

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 47576, this pair ranks #201,139 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of foe vs FSB

Shared letters: f. Private to "foe": eo. Private to "FSB": bs.

"foe" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "FSB" · 3 letters · shape CCC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "foe" for "FSB" ever safe?

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

Frequency check: "foe" vs "FSB" - which ranks higher?

"foe" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,761 in our English list, against #32,815 for "FSB". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "foe" and "FSB". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "foe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "FSB" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #201,139 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"foe" and "FSB" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "foh vs FSB". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #201,139 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.