Which to use
“famous” and “fous” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #33,258
- “famous” frequency rank
- #2,126
- “fous” frequency rank
- 35384
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | famous | fous |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Célèbre. | Masculin pluriel de fou. |
Where the eye mixes famous and fous
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: famous vs fous
A purely visual mix-up. famous (\ˈfeɪm.əs\) and fous (\fu\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35384, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
famous is recorded at frequency rank #33,258, classified as anadj, pronounced \ˈfeɪm.əs\. fous is at rank #2,126, tagged as anadj, pronounced \fu\.
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 35384, this pair ranks #277,130 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of famous vs fous
Shared letters: fosu. Private to "famous": am. Private to "fous": -.
"famous" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC · "fous" · 4 letters · shape CVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "famous" for "fous" ever safe?
Frequency check: "famous" vs "fous" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "famous" and "fous" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "famous" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "fous" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #277,130 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "famous" and "fous" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "famous vs Fatou". 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 #277,130 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.