fort vs Fos, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#380
“fort” frequency rank: #33,268
“Fos” frequency rank: 33648
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	fort	Fos
Definition	Costaud, robuste, vigoureux.	Commune française, située dans le département de la Haute-Garonne.

Letter map: fort vs Fos

Shared letters muted; letters that set fort and Fos apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch

fort

3 ch

Fos

Grammar separator: fort vs Fos

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: fort is anadjective and Fosaname. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33648, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fort is recorded at frequency rank #380, classified as anadj, pronounced \fɔʁ\. Fos is at rank #33,268, tagged as aname.

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 33648, this pair ranks #289,224 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of fort vs Fos

Shared letters: fo. Private to "fort": rt. Private to "Fos": s.

"fort" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "Fos" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

fort ← ffort · forrt · fortt · fotr · frot · ofrt

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "fort" for "Fos" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fort" is an adjective and "Fos" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "fort" or "Fos"?

"fort" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #380 in our French list, against #33,268 for "Fos". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pair "fort" vs "Fos" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "fort" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "Fos" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #289,224 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"fort" and "Fos" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Fee vs Fos". 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 #289,224 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.