felicevsféroceWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#45,040
“felice” frequency rank
#13,176
“féroce” frequency rank
58216
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature felice féroce
Definition Heureux. Qui est cruel par instinct, en parlant des bêtes.

Where the eye mixes felice and féroce

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. felice and féroce follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
felice
6 ch
féroce

Visual trap between felice and féroce

A purely visual mix-up. felice (\fe.ˈli.t͡ʃe\) and féroce (\fe.ʁɔs\) 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 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58216, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

felice is recorded at frequency rank #45,040, classified as anadj, pronounced \fe.ˈli.t͡ʃe\. féroce is at rank #13,176, tagged as anadj, pronounced \fe.ʁɔs\.

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 58216, this pair ranks #110,354 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of felice vs féroce

Shared letters: cef. Private to "felice": il. Private to "féroce": oré.

"felice" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "féroce" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • felice ← eflice · feilce · felcie · felicce · feliec · fellice · ffelice · fleice

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "felice" and "féroce" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\fe.ˈli.t͡ʃe\ versus \fe.ʁɔs\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "felice" vs "féroce" - which ranks higher?
"féroce" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,176 in our French list, against #45,040 for "felice". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "felice" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "féroce" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #110,354 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "felice" and "féroce" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "felice vs fétide". 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 #110,354 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