Which to use
“fouls” and “furs” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #23,837
- “fouls” frequency rank
- #28,931
- “furs” frequency rank
- 52768
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | fouls | furs |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | plural of foul | plural of fur |
Where the eye mixes fouls and furs
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. fouls runs 5 letters (CVVCC) against furs's 4 (CVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses fouls with furs
A purely visual mix-up. fouls (/faʊlz/) and furs (/fɝz/) 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 52768, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
fouls is recorded at frequency rank #23,837, classified as anoun, pronounced /faʊlz/. furs is at rank #28,931, tagged as anoun, pronounced /fɝz/.
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 52768, this pair ranks #154,361 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of fouls vs furs
Shared letters: fsu. Private to "fouls": lo. Private to "furs": r.
"fouls" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC · "furs" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "fouls" and "furs" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "fouls" or "furs" show up more?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "fouls" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "furs" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #154,361 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "fouls" and "furs" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Fars vs furs". 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 #154,361 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.