foinvsfondTell them apart

Which to use

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

#13,388
“foin” frequency rank
#518
“fond” frequency rank
13906
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature foin fond
Definition Herbe fauchée et séchée qui sert principalement à la nourriture des chevaux et des bestiaux. Endroit le plus bas, le plus intérieur d’une chose creuse.

Where the eye mixes foin and fond

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. foin (CVVC) and fond (CVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
foin
4 ch
fond

Visual trap between foin and fond

A purely visual mix-up. foin (\fwɛ̃\) and fond (\fɔ̃\) 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 13906, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

foin is recorded at frequency rank #13,388, classified as anoun, pronounced \fwɛ̃\. fond is at rank #518, 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 13906, this pair ranks #399,010 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of foin vs fond

Shared letters: fno. Private to "foin": i. Private to "fond": d.

"foin" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "fond" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • foinffoin · foinn · foni · ofin
  • fondffond · fnod · fodn · fondd · fonnd · ofnd

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "foin" and "fond" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\fwɛ̃\ versus \fɔ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "foin" vs "fond" - which ranks higher?
"fond" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #518 in our French list, against #13,388 for "foin". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "foin" and "fond" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "foin" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fond" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #399,010 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "foin" and "fond" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "FIV vs foin". 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 #399,010 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