Which to use
“foie” and “food” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #5,041
- “foie” frequency rank
- #8,110
- “food” frequency rank
- 13151
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | foie | food |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | Nourriture. |
Where the eye mixes foie and food
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. foie (CVVV) and food (CVVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Visual trap between foie and food
A purely visual mix-up. foie (\fwa\) 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 share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13151, 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\. 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 13151, this pair ranks #402,218 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of foie vs food
Shared letters: fo. Private to "foie": ei. Private to "food": d.
"foie" · 4 letters · shape CVVV · "food" · 4 letters · shape CVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "foie" and "food" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "foie" vs "food" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "foie" 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 #402,218 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "foie" and "food" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Feld vs food". 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 #402,218 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.