Which to use
“foie” and “foies” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #5,041
- “foie” frequency rank
- #47,901
- “foies” frequency rank
- 52942
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | foie | foies |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Organe présent chez l’être humain et chez la plupart des vertébrés, produisant la bile. Il sert, entre autres, à régler le métabolisme des glucides. | Pluriel de foie. |
Same sound, different letters: foie vs foies
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters. foie runs 4 letters (CVVV) against foies's 5 (CVVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Same sound, different spelling - foie / foies
This is the hard kind. foie and foies are pronounced identically (\fwa\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “foie” sits inside “foies”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52942, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
foie is recorded at frequency rank #5,041, classified as anoun, pronounced \fwa\. foies is at rank #47,901, 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 52942, this pair ranks #144,215 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of foie vs foies
Shared letters: efio. Private to "foie": -. Private to "foies": s.
"foie" · 4 letters · shape CVVV · "foies" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "foie" and "foies" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "foie" or "foies"?
Useful next steps
You've separated the homophone pair "foie" / "foies". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "foie" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "foies" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #144,215 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "foie" and "foies" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "foies vs fouets". 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 #144,215 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.