Font or fount?
font is a noun meaning “A receptacle in a church for holy water, especially one used in baptism”; fount is a noun meaning “That from which something proceeds; an origin, a source”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) font is about 33 times as common as fount.
What is the difference between font and fount?
| font | fount | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun, verb | noun, verb |
| Meaning | A receptacle in a church for holy water, especially one used in baptism A receptacle for lamp oil in a lamp In metal typesetting, a set of type sorts in one size | That from which something proceeds; an origin, a source |
| Example | She dipped her fingers in the font and crossed herself | He is a real fount of knowledge! |
| Forms | fonts | founts |
| Pronunciation | /fɒnt/ /fɑnt/ | /faʊnt/ /fɒnt/ /fɑnt/ |
| In writing | 6.3 times per million words | about once in every 5 million words |
Sources: font and fount 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 font and fount
font
- 1
A receptacle in a church for holy water, especially one used in baptism
She dipped her fingers in the font and crossed herself
- 2
In metal typesetting, a set of type sorts in one size
- 3
informalTo overlay (text) on the picture
- 4
A source, wellspring, fount
- 5
A receptacle for lamp oil in a lamp
- 6
In phototypesetting, a set of patterns forming glyphs of any size, or the film they are stored on
- 7
In digital typesetting, a set of glyphs in a single style, representing one or more alphabets or writing systems, or the computer code representing it
- 8
informalA typeface
fount
- 1
That from which something proceeds; an origin, a source
He is a real fount of knowledge!
- 2
USAlternative form of found (past tense of find)
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, font or fount?
font appears 6.3 times per million words; fount about once in every 5 million words.
font 6.3 times per million wordsfount about once in every 5 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 font vs fount?
“font vs fount” is searched about 90 times a month on Google and 20 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“fount vs font”, “font or fount”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.