Which to use
“fond” and “font” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #518
- “fond” frequency rank
- #281
- “font” frequency rank
- 799
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | fond | font |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Endroit le plus bas, le plus intérieur d’une chose creuse. | ou Source, fontaine. |
Same sound, different letters: fond vs font
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 3 letters.
Ear matches; page differs - fond and font
This is the hard kind. fond and font are pronounced identically (\fɔ̃\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by a single letter - d in “fond” becomes t in “font”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 799, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
fond is recorded at frequency rank #518, classified as anoun, pronounced \fɔ̃\. font is at rank #281, 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 799, this pair ranks #439,099 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of fond vs font
Shared letters: fno. Private to "fond": d. Private to "font": t.
"fond" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "font" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "fond" and "font" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "fond" or "font" show up more?
After this comparison
You've separated the homophone pair "fond" / "font". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "fond" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "font" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #439,099 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "fond" and "font" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Feld vs fond". 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 #439,099 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.