fiolesvsfoiesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#46,172
“fioles” frequency rank
#47,901
“foies” frequency rank
94073
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fioles foies
Definition Pluriel de fiole. Pluriel de foie.

Where the eye mixes fioles and foies

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

6 ch
fioles
5 ch
foies

Why the eye confuses fioles with foies

A purely visual mix-up. fioles (\fjɔl\) and foies (\fwa\) 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 94073, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fioles is recorded at frequency rank #46,172, classified as anoun, pronounced \fjɔl\. 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 94073, this pair ranks #1,866 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of fioles vs foies

Shared letters: efios. Private to "fioles": l. Private to "foies": -.

"fioles" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "foies" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fioles ← ffioles · filoes · fioels · fioless · fiolles · fiolse · ifoles
  • foies ← ffoies · fioes · foeis · foiess · foise · ofies

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "fioles" and "foies" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\fjɔl\ versus \fwa\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "fioles" or "foies"?
"fioles" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #46,172 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.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "fioles" 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 #1,866 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fioles" 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 #1,866 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