footvsfromWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: foot is a noun, from is a preposition, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“foot” is a noun and “from” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,426
“foot” frequency rank
#26
“from” frequency rank
1452
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature foot from
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. Used to indicate source or provenance.

Where the eye mixes foot and from

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
foot
4 ch
from

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: foot is /fʊt/ while from is /fɹɒm/. 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 preposition), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1452, 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/. from is at rank #26, tagged as aprep, pronounced /fɹɒm/.

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 1452, this pair ranks #527,398 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of foot vs from

Shared letters: fo. Private to "foot": t. Private to "from": mr.

"foot" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "from" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • footffoot · foott · fot · foto · ofot
  • fromffrom · frmo · frrom · rfom

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "foot" and "from" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "foot" is a noun and "from" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "foot" or "from"?
"from" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26 in our English list, against #1,426 for "foot". 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