Which to use
“food” and “fox” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #386
- “food” frequency rank
- #2,204
- “fox” frequency rank
- 2590
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | food | fox |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Any solid substance that can be consumed by living organisms, especially by eating, in order to sustain life. | A small-to-medium-sized canine mammal, related to dogs and wolves, with a flattened skull, upright triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail, of the following groups: |
Where the eye mixes food and fox
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses food with fox
A purely visual mix-up. food (/fuːd/) and fox (/fɒks/) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2590, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
food is recorded at frequency rank #386, classified as anoun, pronounced /fuːd/. fox is at rank #2,204, tagged as anoun, pronounced /fɒks/.
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 2590, this pair ranks #524,582 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of food vs fox
Shared letters: fo. Private to "food": d. Private to "fox": x.
"food" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "fox" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- food ← ffood · fod · fodo · foodd · ofod
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "food" and "fox" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "food" or "fox"?
After this comparison
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "food" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "fox" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #524,582 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "food" and "fox" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "FOMO vs fox". 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 #524,582 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.