floodvsflopWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#36,396
“flood” frequency rank
#19,838
“flop” frequency rank
56234
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature flood flop
Definition Envoi massif de messages sur une messagerie instantanée. Échec, en particulier d’œuvre artistique ou d’entreprise commerciale.

Where the eye mixes flood and flop

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. flood runs 5 letters (CCVVC) against flop's 4 (CCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
flood
4 ch
flop

Look-alike desk: flood vs flop

A purely visual mix-up. flood (\flud\) and flop (\flɔp\) 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 56234, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

flood is recorded at frequency rank #36,396, classified as anoun, pronounced \flud\. flop is at rank #19,838, tagged as anoun, pronounced \flɔp\.

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 56234, this pair ranks #122,383 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of flood vs flop

Shared letters: flo. Private to "flood": d. Private to "flop": p.

"flood" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC  ·  "flop" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • flood ← fflood · fllood · flod · flodo · floodd · folod · lfood
  • flop ← fflop · fllop · flopp · flpo · folp · lfop

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "flood" for "flop" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\flud\ versus \flɔp\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "flood" or "flop"?
"flop" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,838 in our French list, against #36,396 for "flood". 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 "flood" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "flop" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #122,383 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "flood" and "flop" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "flood vs flour". 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 #122,383 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