Which to use
“foire” and “frère” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #5,869
- “foire” frequency rank
- #542
- “frère” frequency rank
- 6411
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | foire | frère |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Fête populaire qui a lieu à certaines dates de l’année. | Homme ou garçon enfant du même père et de la même mère qu’un ou plusieurs autre(s) individu(s) ; membre masculin d’une adelphie. |
Where the eye mixes foire and frère
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between foire and frère
A purely visual mix-up. foire (\fwaʁ\) and frère (\fʁɛʁ\) 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 6411, 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\. frère is at rank #542, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fʁɛʁ\.
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 6411, this pair ranks #426,300 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of foire vs frère
Shared letters: efr. Private to "foire": io. Private to "frère": è.
"foire" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV · "frère" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- foire ← ffoire · fiore · foier · foirre · forie · ofire
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "foire" for "frère" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "foire" or "frère" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "foire" and "frère" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "foire" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "frère" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #426,300 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "foire" and "frère" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "foins vs foire". 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 #426,300 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.