Which to use
“family” and “famine” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #13,169
- “family” frequency rank
- #10,500
- “famine” frequency rank
- 23669
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | family | famine |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Famille. | Indisponibilité générale des aliments les plus essentiels. |
Where the eye mixes family and famine
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. family and famine follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between family and famine
A purely visual mix-up. family (\ˈfæm.ə.li\) and famine (\fa.min\) 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 23669, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
family is recorded at frequency rank #13,169, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈfæm.ə.li\. famine is at rank #10,500, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fa.min\.
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 23669, this pair ranks #351,122 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of family vs famine
Shared letters: afim. Private to "family": ly. Private to "famine": en.
"family" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV · "famine" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "family" and "famine" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "family" or "famine"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "family" and "famine" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "family" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "famine" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #351,122 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "family" and "famine" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "famine vs féline". 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 #351,122 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.