Which to use
“found” is a verb and “foundry” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #197
- “found” frequency rank
- #19,091
- “foundry” frequency rank
- 19288
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | found | foundry |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of find | A facility that melts metals in special furnaces and pours the molten metal into molds to make products. Foundries are usually specified according to the type of metal dealt with: iron foundry, brass foundry, etc. |
Where the eye mixes found and foundry
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: found vs foundry
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: found is /faʊnd/ while foundry is /ˈfaʊn.dɹi/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “found” sits inside “foundry”, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19288, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
found is recorded at frequency rank #197, classified as averb, pronounced /faʊnd/. foundry is at rank #19,091, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈfaʊn.dɹi/.
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 19288, this pair ranks #439,210 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of found vs foundry
Shared letters: dfnou. Private to "found": -. Private to "foundry": ry.
"found" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC · "foundry" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "found" and "foundry" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "found" vs "foundry" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "found" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "foundry" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #439,210 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "found" and "foundry" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fou vs found". 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 #439,210 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.