fontsvsfortsWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#39,304
“fonts” frequency rank
#3,075
“forts” frequency rank
42379
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fonts forts
Definition Pluriel de font. Masculin pluriel de fort

Where the eye mixes fonts and forts

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. fonts and forts follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
fonts
5 ch
forts

Visual trap between fonts and forts

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: fonts is \fɔ̃\ while forts is \fɔʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - n in “fonts” becomes r in “forts”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42379, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fonts is recorded at frequency rank #39,304, classified as anoun, pronounced \fɔ̃\. forts is at rank #3,075, 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 42379, this pair ranks #226,067 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of fonts vs forts

Shared letters: fost. Private to "fonts": n. Private to "forts": r.

"fonts" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC  ·  "forts" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fontsffonts · fnots · fonnts · fonst · fontss · fontts · fotns · ofnts
  • fortsfforts · forrts · forst · fortss · fortts · fotrs · frots · ofrts

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "fonts" for "forts" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fonts" is a noun and "forts" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "fonts" vs "forts" - which ranks higher?
"forts" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,075 in our French list, against #39,304 for "fonts". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "fonts" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "forts" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #226,067 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fonts" and "forts" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fonts vs fouets". 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 #226,067 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