Which to use
“fouet” and “foulée” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #9,837
- “fouet” frequency rank
- #10,504
- “foulée” frequency rank
- 20341
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | fouet | foulée |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | Temps pendant lequel, dans la marche, le pied du cheval pose sur le sol. |
Where the eye mixes fouet and foulée
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. fouet runs 5 letters (CVVVC) against foulée's 6 (CVVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: fouet vs foulée
A purely visual mix-up. fouet (\fwɛ\) and foulée (\fu.le\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20341, 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\. foulée is at rank #10,504, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fu.le\.
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 20341, this pair ranks #368,762 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of fouet vs foulée
Shared letters: efou. Private to "fouet": t. Private to "foulée": lé.
"fouet" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC · "foulée" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- fouet ← ffouet · foeut · fouett · fuoet · ofuet
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "fouet" for "foulée" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "fouet" or "foulée" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "fouet" and "foulée" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "fouet" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "foulée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #368,762 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "fouet" and "foulée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fouet 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 #368,762 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.