fondavsfonsWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: fonda is a verb, fons is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“fonda” is a verb and “fons” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#19,289
“fonda” frequency rank
#43,445
“fons” frequency rank
62734
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fonda fons
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de fonder. Fonds (patrimoine).

Letter map: fonda vs fons

Shared letters muted; letters that set fonda and fons apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. fonda runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against fons's 4 (CVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
fonda
4 ch
fons

Part-of-speech tell for fonda / fons

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: fonda is averb and fonsanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62734, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fonda is recorded at frequency rank #19,289, classified as averb, pronounced \fɔ̃.da\. fons is at rank #43,445, tagged as anoun.

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 62734, this pair ranks #85,590 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of fonda vs fons

Shared letters: fno. Private to "fonda": ad. Private to "fons": s.

"fonda" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "fons" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fonda ← ffonda · fnoda · fodna · fonad · fondda · fonnda · ofnda
  • fons ← ffons · fnos · fonns · fonss · fosn · ofns

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "fonda" and "fons" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fonda" is a verb and "fons" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "fonda" or "fons"?
"fonda" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,289 in our French list, against #43,445 for "fons". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "fonda" and "fons". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "fonda" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fons" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #85,590 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fonda" and "fons" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "foins vs fons". 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 #85,590 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