foirevsforkWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#5,869
“foire” frequency rank
#46,769
“fork” frequency rank
52638
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature foire fork
Definition Fête populaire qui a lieu à certaines dates de l’année. Appel système du système UNIX qui duplique un processus existant.

Where the eye mixes foire and fork

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
foire
4 ch
fork

Visual trap between foire and fork

A purely visual mix-up. foire (\fwaʁ\) and fork (\fɔʁk\) 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 52638, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

foire is recorded at frequency rank #5,869, classified as anoun, pronounced \fwaʁ\. fork is at rank #46,769, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fɔʁk\.

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 52638, this pair ranks #146,294 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of foire vs fork

Shared letters: for. Private to "foire": ei. Private to "fork": k.

"foire" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "fork" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • foireffoire · fiore · foier · foirre · forie · ofire
  • forkffork · fokr · forkk · forrk · frok · ofrk

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "foire" for "fork" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\fwaʁ\ versus \fɔʁk\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "foire" vs "fork" - which ranks higher?
"foire" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,869 in our French list, against #46,769 for "fork". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "foire" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fork" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #146,294 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "foire" and "fork" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fork vs FPR". 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 #146,294 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