foivsfourWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: foi is a noun, four is a num, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“foi” is a noun and “four” is a num - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#42,644
“foi” frequency rank
#272
“four” frequency rank
42916
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature foi four
Definition A depiction of a handshake. A numerical value equal to 4; the number after three and before five; two plus two. This many dots (••••)

Letter map: foi vs four

Shared letters muted; letters that set foi and four apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch
foi
4 ch
four

Role in the sentence - foi and four

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: foi is anoun and fouranum. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42916, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

foi is recorded at frequency rank #42,644, classified as anoun. four is at rank #272, tagged as anum, pronounced /foɹ/.

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 42916, this pair ranks #244,956 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of foi vs four

Shared letters: fo. Private to "foi": i. Private to "four": ru.

"foi" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "four" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fourffour · foru · fourr · fuor · ofur

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "foi" for "four" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "foi" is a noun and "four" a num, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "foi" vs "four" - which ranks higher?
"four" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #272 in our English list, against #42,644 for "foi". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "foi" and "four". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "foi" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "four" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #244,956 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "foi" and "four" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "foi vs FOMO". 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 #244,956 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