Which to use
“fouet” is a noun and “foutu” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #9,837
- “fouet” frequency rank
- #4,152
- “foutu” frequency rank
- 13989
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | fouet | foutu |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | Hors d’usage, cassé. |
Where the eye mixes fouet and foutu
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. fouet (CVVVC) and foutu (CVVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Why the eye confuses fouet with foutu
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: fouet is \fwɛ\ while foutu is \fu.ty\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13989, 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\. foutu is at rank #4,152, tagged as anadj, pronounced \fu.ty\.
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 13989, this pair ranks #398,687 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of fouet vs foutu
Shared letters: fotu. Private to "fouet": e. Private to "foutu": -.
"fouet" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC · "foutu" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "fouet" and "foutu" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "fouet" or "foutu"?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "fouet" and "foutu" 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 "foutu" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #398,687 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "fouet" and "foutu" 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 #398,687 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.