flyvsfoiWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#18,205
“fly” frequency rank
#1,478
“foi” frequency rank
19683
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fly foi
Definition Braguette. Croyance aux dogmes de la religion, en Dieu.

Where the eye mixes fly and foi

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

3 ch
fly
3 ch
foi

Look-alike desk: fly vs foi

A purely visual mix-up. fly (\flaj\) and foi (\fwa\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19683, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fly is recorded at frequency rank #18,205, classified as anoun, pronounced \flaj\. foi is at rank #1,478, 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 19683, this pair ranks #372,048 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of fly vs foi

Shared letters: f. Private to "fly": ly. Private to "foi": io.

"fly" · 3 letters · shape CCV  ·  "foi" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "fly" and "foi" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\flaj\ versus \fwa\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "fly" or "foi"?
"foi" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,478 in our French list, against #18,205 for "fly". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "fly" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "foi" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #372,048 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fly" and "foi" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Fee vs fly". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #372,048 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