fovsforkTell them apart

Which to use

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

#9,484
“fo” frequency rank
#46,769
“fork” frequency rank
56253
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fo fork
Definition Folio. Appel système du système UNIX qui duplique un processus existant.

Where the eye mixes fo and fork

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

2 ch
fo
4 ch
fork

Look-alike desk: fo vs fork

A purely visual mix-up. fo (\fɔ.ljo\) and fork (\fɔʁk\) 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 2 extra letter(s) - “fo” sits inside “fork”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56253, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fo is recorded at frequency rank #9,484, classified as anoun, pronounced \fɔ.ljo\. fork is at rank #46,769, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fɔʁk\.

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 56253, this pair ranks #122,260 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of fo vs fork

Shared letters: fo. Private to "fo": -. Private to "fork": kr.

"fo" · 2 letters · shape CV  ·  "fork" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • forkffork · fokr · forkk · forrk · frok · ofrk

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "fo" for "fork" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\fɔ.ljo\ versus \fɔʁk\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "fo" or "fork"?
"fo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,484 in our French list, against #46,769 for "fork". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "fo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fork" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #122,260 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fo" and "fork" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fork vs FPR". 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 #122,260 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