feetvsfielWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#43,431
“feet” frequency rank
#36,843
“fiel” frequency rank
80274
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature feet fiel
Definition Pluriel de foot. Bile, généralement celle du bœuf.

Where the eye mixes feet and fiel

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. feet and fiel follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
feet
4 ch
fiel

Look-alike desk: feet vs fiel

A purely visual mix-up. feet (\fiːt\) and fiel (\fjɛl\) 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 80274, 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\. fiel is at rank #36,843, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fjɛl\.

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 80274, this pair ranks #21,376 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of feet vs fiel

Shared letters: ef. Private to "feet": t. Private to "fiel": il.

"feet" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "fiel" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • feet ← feett · fet · ffeet
  • fiel ← feil · ffiel · fiell · ifel

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "feet" and "fiel" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\fiːt\ versus \fjɛl\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "feet" or "fiel"?
"fiel" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #36,843 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.

After this comparison

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 "fiel" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #21,376 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "feet" and "fiel" 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 #21,376 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