fontvsfrontsWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#281
“font” frequency rank
#16,140
“fronts” frequency rank
16421
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature font fronts
Definition ou Source, fontaine. Pluriel de front.

Where the eye mixes font and fronts

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

4 ch
font
6 ch
fronts

Why the eye confuses font with fronts

A purely visual mix-up. font (\fɔ̃\) and fronts (\fʁɔ̃\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16421, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

font is recorded at frequency rank #281, classified as anoun, pronounced \fɔ̃\. fronts is at rank #16,140, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fʁɔ̃\.

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 16421, this pair ranks #387,925 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of font vs fronts

Shared letters: fnot. Private to "font": -. Private to "fronts": rs.

"font" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "fronts" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fontffont · fnot · fonnt · fontt · fotn · ofnt
  • frontsffronts · fornts · frnots · fronnts · fronst · frontss · frontts · frotns

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "font" for "fronts" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\fɔ̃\ versus \fʁɔ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "font" or "fronts"?
"font" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #281 in our French list, against #16,140 for "fronts". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "font" and "fronts" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "font" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fronts" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #387,925 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "font" and "fronts" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fronce vs fronts". 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 #387,925 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