FeevsfuseWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: Fee is a noun, fuse is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Fee” is a noun and “fuse” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#49,653
“Fee” frequency rank
#46,778
“fuse” frequency rank
96431
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Fee fuse
Definition Fée. Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent du verbe fuser.

Where the eye mixes Fee and fuse

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. Fee runs 3 letters (CVV) against fuse's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
Fee
4 ch
fuse

Visual trap between Fee and fuse

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Fee is \feː\ while fuse is \fyz\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 96431, 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\. fuse is at rank #46,778, tagged as averb, pronounced \fyz\.

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 96431, this pair ranks #676 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Fee vs fuse

Shared letters: ef. Private to "Fee": -. Private to "fuse": su.

"Fee" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "fuse" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fuse ← ffuse · fsue · fues · fusse · ufse

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Fee" for "fuse" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Fee" is a noun and "fuse" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Fee" vs "fuse" - which ranks higher?
"fuse" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #46,778 in our French list, against #49,653 for "Fee". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "fuse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #676 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Fee" and "fuse" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Fee vs FPR". 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 #676 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