fochvsfordTell them apart

Which to use

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

#28,562
“foch” frequency rank
#4,941
“ford” frequency rank
33503
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature foch ford
Definition Forme mutée de moch par lénition. Gué.

Where the eye mixes foch and ford

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

4 ch
foch
4 ch
ford

Why the eye confuses foch with ford

A purely visual mix-up. foch (\voːχ\) and ford (\fɔːd\) 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 33503, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

foch is recorded at frequency rank #28,562, classified as anoun, pronounced \voːχ\. ford is at rank #4,941, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fɔːd\.

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 33503, this pair ranks #290,198 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of foch vs ford

Shared letters: fo. Private to "foch": ch. Private to "ford": dr.

"foch" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "ford" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fochfcoh · ffoch · focch · fochh · fohc · ofch
  • fordfford · fodr · fordd · forrd · frod · ofrd

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "foch" and "ford" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\voːχ\ versus \fɔːd\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "foch" or "ford"?
"ford" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,941 in our French list, against #28,562 for "foch". 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 "foch" and "ford" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "foch" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ford" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #290,198 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "foch" and "ford" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "foch vs fork". 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 #290,198 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