fonvsfrogWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#27,443
“fon” frequency rank
#42,890
“frog” frequency rank
70333
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fon frog
Definition Langue parlée au Bénin et au Nigéria. Surnom dont des Canadiens non francophones affublent les Québécois francophones.

Where the eye mixes fon and frog

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch
fon
4 ch
frog

Visual trap between fon and frog

A purely visual mix-up. fon (\fɔ̃\) and frog (\fɹɒɡ\) 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 70333, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fon is recorded at frequency rank #27,443, classified as anoun, pronounced \fɔ̃\. frog is at rank #42,890, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fɹɒɡ\.

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 70333, this pair ranks #51,705 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of fon vs frog

Shared letters: fo. Private to "fon": n. Private to "frog": gr.

"fon" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "frog" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • frogffrog · forg · frgo · frogg · frrog · rfog

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "fon" for "frog" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\fɔ̃\ versus \fɹɒɡ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "fon" or "frog" show up more?
"fon" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,443 in our French list, against #42,890 for "frog". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "fon" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "frog" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #51,705 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fon" and "frog" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fog vs frog". 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 #51,705 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