Which to use
“foiled” and “fouled” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #29,659
- “foiled” frequency rank
- #26,431
- “fouled” frequency rank
- 56090
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | foiled | fouled |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of foil | simple past and past participle of foul |
Where the eye mixes foiled and fouled
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. foiled and fouled follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: foiled vs fouled
A purely visual mix-up. foiled (/fɔɪld/) and fouled (/faʊld/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - i in “foiled” becomes u in “fouled”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56090, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
foiled is recorded at frequency rank #29,659, classified as averb, pronounced /fɔɪld/. fouled is at rank #26,431, tagged as averb, pronounced /faʊld/.
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 56090, this pair ranks #128,799 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of foiled vs fouled
Shared letters: deflo. Private to "foiled": i. Private to "fouled": u.
"foiled" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC · "fouled" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "foiled" for "fouled" ever safe?
Frequency check: "foiled" vs "fouled" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "foiled" and "fouled" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "foiled" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "fouled" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #128,799 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "foiled" and "fouled" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "foiled vs Foyle". 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 #128,799 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.