fontvsfortWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: font is a noun, fort is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“font” is a noun and “fort” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#281
“font” frequency rank
#380
“fort” frequency rank
661
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature font fort
Definition ou Source, fontaine. Costaud, robuste, vigoureux.

Where the eye mixes font and fort

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
font
4 ch
fort

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: font is \fɔ̃\ while fort is \fɔʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - n in “font” becomes r in “fort”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 661, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

font is recorded at frequency rank #281, classified as anoun, pronounced \fɔ̃\. fort is at rank #380, tagged as anadj, pronounced \fɔʁ\.

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 661, this pair ranks #439,314 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of font vs fort

Shared letters: fot. Private to "font": n. Private to "fort": r.

"font" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "fort" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fontffont · fnot · fonnt · fontt · fotn · ofnt
  • fortffort · forrt · fortt · fotr · frot · ofrt

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "font" and "fort" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "font" is a noun and "fort" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "font" or "fort"?
"font" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #281 in our French list, against #380 for "fort". 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 "font" and "fort". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "font" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fort" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #439,314 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "font" and "fort" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fort 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list