FosvsfoursWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: Fos is a name, fours is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#33,268
“Fos” frequency rank
#13,175
“fours” frequency rank
46443
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Fos fours
Definition Commune française, située dans le département de la Haute-Garonne. Pluriel de four.

Letter map: Fos vs fours

Shared letters muted; letters that set Fos and fours apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

3 ch
Fos
5 ch
fours

Grammar separator: Fos vs fours

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Fos is aname and foursanoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46443, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Fos is recorded at frequency rank #33,268, classified as aname. fours is at rank #13,175, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fuʁ\.

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 46443, this pair ranks #194,893 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Fos vs fours

Shared letters: fos. Private to "Fos": -. Private to "fours": ru.

"Fos" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "fours" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • foursffours · forus · fourrs · fourss · fousr · fuors · ofurs

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Fos" for "fours" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Fos" is a name and "fours" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Fos" vs "fours" - which ranks higher?
"fours" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,175 in our French list, against #33,268 for "Fos". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "Fos" and "fours". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Fos" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fours" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #194,893 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Fos" and "fours" 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 #194,893 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