footvsforteWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“foot” and “forte” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#1,426
“foot” frequency rank
#21,216
“forte” frequency rank
22642
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature foot forte
Definition A biological structure found in many animals that is used for locomotion and that is frequently a separate organ at the terminal part of the leg. A strength or talent; a strong point.

Where the eye mixes foot and forte

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
foot
5 ch
forte

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. foot (/fʊt/) and forte (/ˈfɔːteɪ/) 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 22642, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

foot is recorded at frequency rank #1,426, classified as anoun, pronounced /fʊt/. forte is at rank #21,216, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈfɔːteɪ/.

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 22642, this pair ranks #415,083 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of foot vs forte

Shared letters: fot. Private to "foot": -. Private to "forte": er.

"foot" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "forte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • footffoot · foott · fot · foto · ofot
  • fortefforte · foret · forrte · fortte · fotre · frote · ofrte

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "foot" and "forte" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/fʊt/ versus /ˈfɔːteɪ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "foot" or "forte"?
"foot" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,426 in our English list, against #21,216 for "forte". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list