Which to use
“fouet” and “fouets” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #9,837
- “fouet” frequency rank
- #49,094
- “fouets” frequency rank
- 58931
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | fouet | fouets |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Cordelette de chanvre ou de cuir, qui est attachée à une baguette, à un bâton, et dont on se sert pour conduire et pour châtier les chevaux et autres animaux, voire, dans certains pays ou à certaines époques, pour punir une personne condamnée. | Pluriel de fouet. |
Same sound, different letters: fouet vs fouets
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. fouet runs 5 letters (CVVVC) against fouets's 6 (CVVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Homophone desk: fouet vs fouets
This is the hard kind. fouet and fouets are pronounced identically (\fwɛ\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “fouet” sits inside “fouets”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58931, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
fouet is recorded at frequency rank #9,837, classified as anoun, pronounced \fwɛ\. fouets is at rank #49,094, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fwɛ\.
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 58931, this pair ranks #106,077 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of fouet vs fouets
Shared letters: efotu. Private to "fouet": -. Private to "fouets": s.
"fouet" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC · "fouets" · 6 letters · shape CVVVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "fouet" and "fouets" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "fouet" or "fouets" show up more?
What to do next
"fouet" and "fouets" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "fouet" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "fouets" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #106,077 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "fouet" and "fouets" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "foies vs fouets". 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 #106,077 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.