foo
/fuː/
"foo" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“foo” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #18,562) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #18,562
- frequency rank, English
- 2,507
- “F” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Alternative form of fu: an administrative subdivision of imperial China; the capital of such divisions.
Corpus desk
Index EN-foo · foo · English
foo · rank #18,562 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #18,562
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,507
- PHOTO-FINISH folly
Nearest frequency peer: folly (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbours of confusable “foo”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- fang
fang
81,442 corpus weight
- fiesta
fiesta
81,441 corpus weight
- folly
folly
81,440 corpus weight
- foo
foo
81,439 corpus weight
- foreseeable
foreseeable
81,438 corpus weight
- Frenchman
Frenchman
81,437 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “foo” against nearest ranked English headwords, not a reprint of the confusable-pair desk.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | foo |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /fuː/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #18,562 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “foo”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for foo is neighbouring look-alikes ("fu", "FS", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /fuː/. Frequency #18,562 among 2,507 “F” headwords. Gloss: "Alternative form of fu: an administrative subdivision of imperial China; the capital of such divisions.".
No misspelling variants are generated for foo in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "fu", "FS", "FP", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Mandarin 府 (fǔ). The correct English form is foo, spelled F-O-O.
Definition
- 1Alternative form of fu: an administrative subdivision of imperial China; the capital of such divisions.
Etymology
From Mandarin 府 (fǔ).
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "foo"?
What does "foo" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "foo"?
How do you pronounce "foo"?
What is the origin of the word "foo"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "foo", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).