fondsvsfontTell them apart

Which to use

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

#1,062
“fonds” frequency rank
#281
“font” frequency rank
1343
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fonds font
Definition Ensemble de biens matériels ou immatériels servant à l’usage principal d’une activité. ou Source, fontaine.

Same sound, different letters: fonds vs font

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 3 letters.

5 ch
fonds
4 ch
font

Ear matches; page differs - fonds and font

This is the hard kind. fonds 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1343, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fonds is recorded at frequency rank #1,062, 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 1343, this pair ranks #438,234 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of fonds vs font

Shared letters: fno. Private to "fonds": ds. Private to "font": t.

"fonds" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC  ·  "font" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fondsffonds · fnods · fodns · fondds · fondss · fonnds · fonsd · ofnds
  • fontffont · fnot · fonnt · fontt · fotn · ofnt

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "fonds" for "font" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (\fɔ̃\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "fonds" vs "font" - which ranks higher?
"font" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #281 in our French list, against #1,062 for "fonds". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've separated the homophone pair "fonds" / "font". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "fonds" 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 #438,234 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fonds" and "font" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "foins vs fonds". 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 #438,234 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