Which to use
“fog” and “fon” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #46,768
- “fog” frequency rank
- #27,443
- “fon” frequency rank
- 74211
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | fog | fon |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Brouillard, brume. | Langue parlée au Bénin et au Nigéria. |
Where the eye mixes fog and fon
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. fog and fon follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: fog vs fon
A purely visual mix-up. fog (\fɔɡ\) and fon (\fɔ̃\) 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 n in “fon”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 74211, 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\. fon is at rank #27,443, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fɔ̃\.
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 74211, this pair ranks #37,878 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of fog vs fon
Shared letters: fo. Private to "fog": g. Private to "fon": n.
"fog" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "fon" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "fog" and "fon" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "fog" or "fon" show up more?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "fog" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "fon" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #37,878 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "fog" and "fon" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Fee vs fog". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #37,878 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.