fontvsforkTell them apart

Which to use

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

#281
“font” frequency rank
#46,769
“fork” frequency rank
47050
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature font fork
Definition ou Source, fontaine. Appel système du système UNIX qui duplique un processus existant.

Where the eye mixes font and fork

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

4 ch
font
4 ch
fork

Look-alike desk: font vs fork

A purely visual mix-up. font (\fɔ̃\) and fork (\fɔʁk\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47050, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

font is recorded at frequency rank #281, classified as anoun, pronounced \fɔ̃\. fork is at rank #46,769, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fɔʁk\.

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 47050, this pair ranks #190,046 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of font vs fork

Shared letters: fo. Private to "font": nt. Private to "fork": kr.

"font" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "fork" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fontffont · fnot · fonnt · fontt · fotn · ofnt
  • forkffork · fokr · forkk · forrk · frok · ofrk

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "font" for "fork" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\fɔ̃\ versus \fɔʁk\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "font" or "fork" show up more?
"font" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #281 in our French list, against #46,769 for "fork". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "font" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fork" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #190,046 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "font" and "fork" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fork vs FPR". 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 #190,046 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