fasvsfonWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“fas” and “fon” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#47,890
“fas” frequency rank
#27,443
“fon” frequency rank
75333
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fas fon
Definition Face, figure, visage. Langue parlée au Bénin et au Nigéria.

Where the eye mixes fas and fon

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence. fas and fon follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

3 ch
fas
3 ch
fon

Look-alike desk: fas vs fon

A purely visual mix-up. fas (\ˈfasː\) and fon (\fɔ̃\) 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 75333, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fas is recorded at frequency rank #47,890, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈfasː\. fon is at rank #27,443, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fɔ̃\.

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 75333, this pair ranks #34,391 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of fas vs fon

Shared letters: f. Private to "fas": as. Private to "fon": no.

"fas" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "fon" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "fas" for "fon" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ˈfasː\ versus \fɔ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "fas" or "fon"?
"fon" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,443 in our French list, against #47,890 for "fas". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "fas" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fon" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #34,391 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fas" and "fon" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fas vs Fee". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #34,391 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list