Which to use
“food” is a noun and “four” is a num - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #386
- “food” frequency rank
- #272
- “four” frequency rank
- 658
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | food | four |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Any solid substance that can be consumed by living organisms, especially by eating, in order to sustain life. | A numerical value equal to 4; the number after three and before five; two plus two. This many dots (••••) |
Where the eye mixes food and four
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: food is /fuːd/ while four is /foɹ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs num), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 658, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
food is recorded at frequency rank #386, classified as anoun, pronounced /fuːd/. 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 658, this pair ranks #529,034 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of food vs four
Shared letters: fo. Private to "food": d. Private to "four": ru.
"food" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "four" · 4 letters · shape CVVC