Which to use
“forage” and “foray” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #24,757
- “forage” frequency rank
- #27,464
- “foray” frequency rank
- 52221
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | forage | foray |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Fodder for animals, especially cattle and horses. | A sudden or irregular incursion in border warfare; hence, any irregular incursion for war or spoils; a raid. |
Where the eye mixes forage and foray
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. forage runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against foray's 5 (CVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between forage and foray
A purely visual mix-up. forage (/ˈfɒɹ.ɪd͡ʒ/) and foray (/ˈfɒɹ.eɪ/) 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 52221, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
forage is recorded at frequency rank #24,757, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈfɒɹ.ɪd͡ʒ/. foray is at rank #27,464, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈfɒɹ.eɪ/.
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 52221, this pair ranks #158,877 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of forage vs foray
Shared letters: afor. Private to "forage": eg. Private to "foray": y.
"forage" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV · "foray" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "forage" and "foray" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "forage" vs "foray" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "forage" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "foray" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #158,877 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "forage" and "foray" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "folate vs forage". 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 #158,877 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.