food vs fou, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“food” is a noun and “fou” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#386
“food” frequency rank: #48,244
“fou” frequency rank: 48630
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	food	fou
Definition	Any solid substance that can be consumed by living organisms, especially by eating, in order to sustain life.	Drunk.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set food and fou apart are highlighted. They share 2 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

4 ch

food

3 ch

fou

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: food is anoun and fouanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48630, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

food is recorded at frequency rank #386, classified as anoun, pronounced /fuːd/. fou is at rank #48,244, tagged as anadj.

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 48630, this pair ranks #191,223 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of food vs fou

Shared letters: fo. Private to "food": d. Private to "fou": u.

"food" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "fou" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

food ← ffood · fod · fodo · foodd · ofod

Frequency comparison

food#386

fou#48,244

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "food" and "fou" be used interchangeably?

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

Which is more common, "food" or "fou"?

"food" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #386 in our English list, against #48,244 for "fou". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Remembering food vs fou

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

Check the role first: if you need a noun, it's “food”; for an adjective, it's “fou”.
See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “food” entry
Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable