Which to use
“fog” and “food” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #46,768
- “fog” frequency rank
- #8,110
- “food” frequency rank
- 54878
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | fog | food |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Brouillard, brume. | Nourriture. |
Where the eye mixes fog and food
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. fog runs 3 letters (CVC) against food's 4 (CVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses fog with food
A purely visual mix-up. fog (\fɔɡ\) and food (\fuːd\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54878, 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\. food is at rank #8,110, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fuːd\.
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 54878, this pair ranks #131,076 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of fog vs food
Shared letters: fo. Private to "fog": g. Private to "food": d.
"fog" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "food" · 4 letters · shape CVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- food ← ffood · fod · fodo · foodd · ofod
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "fog" for "food" ever safe?
Which is more common, "fog" or "food"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "fog" and "food" 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 "food" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #131,076 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "fog" and "food" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Fee vs fog". 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 #131,076 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.