filonvsfoisonWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#24,975
“filon” frequency rank
#37,817
“foison” frequency rank
62792
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature filon foison
Definition Gisement étendu d’une matière, de forme allongée, permettant son identification. Très grande abondance.

Where the eye mixes filon and foison

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. filon runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against foison's 6 (CVVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
filon
6 ch
foison

Look-alike desk: filon vs foison

A purely visual mix-up. filon (\fi.lɔ̃\) and foison (\fwa.zɔ̃\) 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 62792, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

filon is recorded at frequency rank #24,975, classified as anoun, pronounced \fi.lɔ̃\. foison is at rank #37,817, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fwa.zɔ̃\.

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 62792, this pair ranks #85,270 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of filon vs foison

Shared letters: fino. Private to "filon": l. Private to "foison": s.

"filon" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "foison" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • filon ← ffilon · filno · filonn · fioln · flion · iflon
  • foison ← ffoison · fioson · foiosn · foisno · foisonn · foisson · fosion · ofison

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "filon" and "foison" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\fi.lɔ̃\ versus \fwa.zɔ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "filon" or "foison"?
"filon" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,975 in our French list, against #37,817 for "foison". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "filon" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "foison" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #85,270 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "filon" and "foison" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "foison vs foulon". 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 #85,270 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