foivsfoyTell them apart

Which to use

“foi” and “foy” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#42,644
“foi” frequency rank
#36,566
“foy” frequency rank
79210
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature foi foy
Definition A depiction of a handshake. Faith, allegiance.

Letter map: foi vs foy

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

3 ch
foi
3 ch
foy

Corpus notes: foi and foy

foi and foy are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by a single letter - i in “foi” becomes y in “foy”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 79210, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

foi is recorded at frequency rank #42,644, classified as anoun. foy is at rank #36,566, tagged as anoun.

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 79210, this pair ranks #22,663 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of foi vs foy

Shared letters: fo. Private to "foi": i. Private to "foy": y.

"foi" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "foy" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "foi" for "foy" ever safe?
No. They differ by a single letter - i in “foi” becomes y in “foy”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "foi" vs "foy" - which ranks higher?
"foy" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #36,566 in our English list, against #42,644 for "foi". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "foi" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "foy" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #22,663 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "foi" and "foy" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "foi vs FOMO". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #22,663 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