foe
/foʊ/noun
foe is spelled F-O-E: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears 3.2 times per million words in written English, the 14,731st most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, foe means “An enemy” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of foe is foes.
How many letters and syllables are in foe?
| Letters | 3: F-O-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 3.2 times per million words; the 14,731st most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Sounds like | |
| Rhymes with |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is foe?
Foe appears 3.2 times per million words in written English, the 14,731st most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce foe?
- UK /fəʊ/
- US /foʊ/
Foe has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-foe.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with foe
Sounds like: faux, fow, pho (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with foe?
The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as foe from its last stressed vowel (/oʊ/):
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of foe
- foes plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does foe mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
An enemy.
- 2
A unit of energy equal to 10⁴⁴ joules.
noun
- 1
Initialism of freedom of expression.
- 2
Initialism of forces of evil.
adjective
- 1
obsoleteHostile.
he, I say, could passe into Affrike onely with two simple ships or small barkes, to commit himselfe in a strange and foe countrie, to engage his person, under the power of a barbarous King […].
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Foe in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense hostile:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| German | gegnerisch, feindlich |
| Spanish | rival, inimicísimo (disused) |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does foe come from?
From Middle English fo (“foe; hostile”), from earlier yfoh, yvo, ifa (“foe”), from Old English ġefāh (“enemy”), from fāh (“hostile”), from Proto-West Germanic *faih, from Proto-Germanic *faihaz (compare Old Frisian fāch (“punishable”), Middle High German gevēch (“feuder”)), from Proto-Indo-European *peyk/ḱ- (“to hate, be hostile”) (compare Middle Irish óech (“enemy, fiend”), Lithuanian pi̇̀ktas (“evil”)).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).