feuxvsfoutWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#3,756
“feux” frequency rank
#3,403
“fout” frequency rank
7159
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature feux fout
Definition Feux tricolores. Troisième personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de foutre.

Letter map: feux vs fout

Shared letters muted; letters that set feux and fout apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
feux
4 ch
fout

Part-of-speech tell for feux / fout

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: feux is anoun and foutaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 7159, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

feux is recorded at frequency rank #3,756, classified as anoun, pronounced \fø\. fout is at rank #3,403, tagged as averb.

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 7159, this pair ranks #424,027 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of feux vs fout

Shared letters: fu. Private to "feux": ex. Private to "fout": ot.

"feux" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "fout" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • feuxefux · feuxx · fexu · ffeux · fuex
  • foutffout · fotu · foutt · fuot · ofut

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "feux" and "fout" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "feux" is a noun and "fout" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "feux" or "fout"?
"fout" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,403 in our French list, against #3,756 for "feux". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "feux" and "fout".

  • Full dictionary entry for "feux" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fout" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #424,027 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "feux" and "fout" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Fee vs feux". 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 #424,027 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