finesvsfonsWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#7,694
“fines” frequency rank
#43,445
“fons” frequency rank
51139
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fines fons
Definition Granulat composé d’éléments de très petites dimensions utilisé soit comme charge de remplissage pour augmenter la compacité notamment d'un béton, d'un sol, soit comme constituant de certains liants hydrauliques. Fonds (patrimoine).

Letter map: fines vs fons

Shared letters muted; letters that set fines and fons apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
fines
4 ch
fons

Pair insight - fines / fons

fines and fons are indexed as a confusable French pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51139, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fines is recorded at frequency rank #7,694, classified as anoun, pronounced \fin\. fons is at rank #43,445, tagged as anoun.

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 51139, this pair ranks #157,280 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of fines vs fons

Shared letters: fns. Private to "fines": ei. Private to "fons": o.

"fines" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "fons" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • finesffines · fiens · finess · finnes · finse · fnies · ifnes
  • fonsffons · fnos · fonns · fonss · fosn · ofns

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "fines" for "fons" ever safe?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary French text, does "fines" or "fons" show up more?
"fines" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,694 in our French list, against #43,445 for "fons". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "fines" and "fons". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "fines" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fons" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #157,280 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fines" and "fons" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "foins vs fons". 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 #157,280 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