forayvsformsWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#27,464
“foray” frequency rank
#1,899
“forms” frequency rank
29363
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature foray forms
Definition A sudden or irregular incursion in border warfare; hence, any irregular incursion for war or spoils; a raid. plural of form

Where the eye mixes foray and forms

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

5 ch
foray
5 ch
forms

Look-alike desk: foray vs forms

A purely visual mix-up. foray (/ˈfɒɹ.eɪ/) and forms (/fɔːmz/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29363, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

foray is recorded at frequency rank #27,464, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈfɒɹ.eɪ/. forms is at rank #1,899, tagged as anoun, pronounced /fɔːmz/.

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 29363, this pair ranks #363,617 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of foray vs forms

Shared letters: for. Private to "foray": ay. Private to "forms": ms.

"foray" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "forms" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • forayfforay · foary · forayy · forray · forya · froay · ofray
  • formsfforms · fomrs · formms · formss · forrms · forsm · froms · ofrms

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "foray" and "forms" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ˈfɒɹ.eɪ/ versus /fɔːmz/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary English text, does "foray" or "forms" show up more?
"forms" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,899 in our English list, against #27,464 for "foray". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "foray" and "forms" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "foray" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "forms" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #363,617 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "foray" and "forms" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fora vs foray". 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 #363,617 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list