FeldvsflyWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#49,082
“Feld” frequency rank
#18,205
“fly” frequency rank
67287
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Feld fly
Definition Champ, surface cultivée. Braguette.

Where the eye mixes Feld and fly

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
Feld
3 ch
fly

Why the eye confuses Feld with fly

A purely visual mix-up. Feld (\fɛlt\) and fly (\flaj\) 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 67287, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Feld is recorded at frequency rank #49,082, classified as anoun, pronounced \fɛlt\. fly is at rank #18,205, tagged as anoun, pronounced \flaj\.

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 67287, this pair ranks #64,063 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Feld vs fly

Shared letters: fl. Private to "Feld": de. Private to "fly": y.

"Feld" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "fly" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Feldefld · fedl · feldd · felld · ffeld · fled

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Feld" for "fly" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\fɛlt\ versus \flaj\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "Feld" vs "fly" - which ranks higher?
"fly" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,205 in our French list, against #49,082 for "Feld". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Feld" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fly" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #64,063 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Feld" and "fly" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Fee vs Feld". 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 #64,063 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