finiesvsfoiesTell them apart

Quick tell: finies is a adjective, foies is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“finies” is an adjective and “foies” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#21,321
“finies” frequency rank
#47,901
“foies” frequency rank
69222
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature finies foies
Definition Féminin pluriel de fini. Pluriel de foie.

Where the eye mixes finies and foies

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

6 ch
finies
5 ch
foies

Visual trap between finies and foies

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: finies is \fi.ni\ while foies is \fwa\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69222, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

finies is recorded at frequency rank #21,321, classified as anadj, pronounced \fi.ni\. foies is at rank #47,901, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fwa\.

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 69222, this pair ranks #55,991 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of finies vs foies

Shared letters: efis. Private to "finies": n. Private to "foies": o.

"finies" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC  ·  "foies" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • finiesffinies · fiines · fineis · finiess · finnies · fniies · ifnies
  • foiesffoies · fioes · foeis · foiess · foise · ofies

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "finies" for "foies" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "finies" is an adjective and "foies" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "finies" or "foies"?
"finies" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,321 in our French list, against #47,901 for "foies". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "finies" and "foies" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "finies" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "foies" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #55,991 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "finies" and "foies" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "foies vs fouets". 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 #55,991 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