fonsvsfoyConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#43,445
“fons” frequency rank
#14,677
“foy” frequency rank
58122
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fons foy
Definition Fonds (patrimoine). rien, aucun problème.

Letter map: fons vs foy

Shared letters muted; letters that set fons and foy apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
fons
3 ch
foy

Role in the sentence - fons and foy

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: fons is anoun and foyapronoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58122, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fons is recorded at frequency rank #43,445, classified as anoun. foy is at rank #14,677, tagged as apron.

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 58122, this pair ranks #110,905 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of fons vs foy

Shared letters: fo. Private to "fons": ns. Private to "foy": y.

"fons" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "foy" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fonsffons · fnos · fonns · fonss · fosn · ofns

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "fons" for "foy" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fons" is a noun and "foy" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "fons" or "foy" show up more?
"foy" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,677 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.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "fons" and "foy".

  • Full dictionary entry for "fons" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "foy" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #110,905 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fons" and "foy" 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 #110,905 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