Which to use
“fort” is an adjective and “fout” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #380
- “fort” frequency rank
- #3,403
- “fout” frequency rank
- 3783
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | fort | fout |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Costaud, robuste, vigoureux. | Troisième personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de foutre. |
Letter map: fort vs fout
Shared letters muted; letters that set fort and fout apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.
Role in the sentence - fort and fout
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: fort is anadjective and foutaverb. On the page they differ by a single letter - r in “fort” becomes u in “fout”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 3783, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
fort is recorded at frequency rank #380, classified as anadj, pronounced \fɔʁ\. fout is at rank #3,403, tagged as averb.
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 3783, this pair ranks #433,200 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of fort vs fout
Shared letters: fot. Private to "fort": r. Private to "fout": u.
"fort" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "fout" · 4 letters · shape CVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "fort" and "fout" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "fort" or "fout"?
What to do next
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "fort" and "fout".
- Full dictionary entry for "fort" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "fout" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #433,200 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "fort" and "fout" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fouets vs fout". 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 #433,200 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.