feetvsfèvesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#43,431
“feet” frequency rank
#26,017
“fèves” frequency rank
69448
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature feet fèves
Definition Pluriel de foot. Pluriel de fève.

Where the eye mixes feet and fèves

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. feet runs 4 letters (CVVC) against fèves's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
feet
5 ch
fèves

Why the eye confuses feet with fèves

A purely visual mix-up. feet (\fiːt\) and fèves (\fɛv\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69448, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

feet is recorded at frequency rank #43,431, classified as anoun, pronounced \fiːt\. fèves is at rank #26,017, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fɛv\.

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 69448, this pair ranks #55,062 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of feet vs fèves

Shared letters: ef. Private to "feet": t. Private to "fèves": svè.

"feet" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "fèves" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • feet ← feett · fet · ffeet

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "feet" for "fèves" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\fiːt\ versus \fɛv\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "feet" or "fèves"?
"fèves" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,017 in our French list, against #43,431 for "feet". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "feet" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fèves" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #55,062 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "feet" and "fèves" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Fee vs feet". 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 #55,062 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