FeevsfoiWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#49,653
“Fee” frequency rank
#1,478
“foi” frequency rank
51131
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Fee foi
Definition Fée. Croyance aux dogmes de la religion, en Dieu.

Where the eye mixes Fee and foi

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

3 ch
Fee
3 ch
foi

Visual trap between Fee and foi

A purely visual mix-up. Fee (\feː\) and foi (\fwa\) 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 51131, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Fee is recorded at frequency rank #49,653, classified as anoun, pronounced \feː\. foi is at rank #1,478, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fwa\.

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 51131, this pair ranks #157,345 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Fee vs foi

Shared letters: f. Private to "Fee": e. Private to "foi": io.

"Fee" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "foi" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Fee" for "foi" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\feː\ versus \fwa\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "Fee" or "foi"?
"foi" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,478 in our French list, against #49,653 for "Fee". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Fee" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "foi" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #157,345 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Fee" and "foi" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Fee vs FPR". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #157,345 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