fogvsfoiConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#46,768
“fog” frequency rank
#1,478
“foi” frequency rank
48246
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fog foi
Definition Brouillard, brume. Croyance aux dogmes de la religion, en Dieu.

Where the eye mixes fog and foi

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

3 ch
fog
3 ch
foi

Why the eye confuses fog with foi

A purely visual mix-up. fog (\fɔɡ\) 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 differ by a single letter - g in “fog” becomes i in “foi”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48246, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fog is recorded at frequency rank #46,768, classified as anoun, pronounced \fɔɡ\. 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 48246, this pair ranks #180,449 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of fog vs foi

Shared letters: fo. Private to "fog": g. Private to "foi": i.

"fog" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "foi" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "fog" for "foi" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\fɔɡ\ versus \fwa\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "fog" vs "foi" - which ranks higher?
"foi" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,478 in our French list, against #46,768 for "fog". 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 "fog" and "foi" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "fog" 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 #180,449 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fog" and "foi" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Fee vs fog". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #180,449 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