Which to use
“foule” and “foulon” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #2,616
- “foule” frequency rank
- #40,772
- “foulon” frequency rank
- 43388
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | foule | foulon |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Action de fouler les draps. On dit plutôt foulage de nos jours. | Artisan qui foule, qui apprête les draps et autres étoffes de laine. |
Where the eye mixes foule and foulon
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. foule runs 5 letters (CVVCV) against foulon's 6 (CVVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between foule and foulon
A purely visual mix-up. foule (\ful\) and foulon (\fu.lɔ̃\) 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 43388, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
foule is recorded at frequency rank #2,616, classified as anoun, pronounced \ful\. foulon is at rank #40,772, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fu.lɔ̃\.
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 43388, this pair ranks #218,424 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of foule vs foulon
Shared letters: flou. Private to "foule": e. Private to "foulon": n.
"foule" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV · "foulon" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "foule" and "foulon" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "foule" or "foulon" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "foule" and "foulon" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "foule" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "foulon" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #218,424 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "foule" and "foulon" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "foulon vs frelon". 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 #218,424 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.