fortinvsfortisWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#20,147
“fortin” frequency rank
#46,179
“fortis” frequency rank
66326
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fortin fortis
Definition Petit fort. Fort, robuste, solide, vigoureux, bien portant.

Letter map: fortin vs fortis

Shared letters muted; letters that set fortin and fortis apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. fortin and fortis follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
fortin
6 ch
fortis

Role in the sentence - fortin and fortis

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: fortin is anoun and fortisanadjective. On the page they differ by a single letter - n in “fortin” becomes s in “fortis”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 66326, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fortin is recorded at frequency rank #20,147, classified as anoun, pronounced \fɔʁ.tɛ̃\. fortis is at rank #46,179, tagged as anadj.

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 66326, this pair ranks #68,316 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of fortin vs fortis

Shared letters: fiort. Private to "fortin": n. Private to "fortis": s.

"fortin" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "fortis" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fortin ← ffortin · foritn · forrtin · fortinn · fortni · forttin · fotrin · frotin
  • fortis ← ffortis · forits · forrtis · fortiss · fortsi · fotris · ofrtis

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "fortin" and "fortis" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fortin" is a noun and "fortis" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "fortin" vs "fortis" - which ranks higher?
"fortin" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,147 in our French list, against #46,179 for "fortis". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "fortin" vs "fortis" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "fortin" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fortis" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #68,316 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fortin" and "fortis" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fortis vs furtifs". 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 #68,316 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