formentvsfromentWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: forment is a verb, froment is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“forment” is a verb and “froment” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#4,149
“forment” frequency rank
#31,969
“froment” frequency rank
36118
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature forment froment
Definition Troisième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de former. Blé tendre.

Where the eye mixes forment and froment

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.

7 ch
forment
7 ch
froment

Why the eye confuses forment with froment

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: forment is \fɔʁm\ while froment is \fʁɔ.mɑ̃\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ only by swapping two adjacent letters (or ↔ ro) - a transposition the eye reads straight past, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 36118, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

forment is recorded at frequency rank #4,149, classified as averb, pronounced \fɔʁm\. froment is at rank #31,969, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fʁɔ.mɑ̃\.

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 36118, this pair ranks #271,877 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of forment vs froment

Shared letters: efmnort. Private to "forment": -. Private to "froment": -.

"forment" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC  ·  "froment" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • formentfforment · fomrent · foremnt · formennt · formentt · formetn · formment · formnet
  • fromentffroment · frmoent · froemnt · fromennt · fromentt · frometn · fromment · fromnet

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "forment" and "froment" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "forment" is a verb and "froment" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "forment" or "froment" show up more?
"forment" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,149 in our French list, against #31,969 for "froment". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "forment" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "froment" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #271,877 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "forment" and "froment" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "froment vs frozen". 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 #271,877 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