foulevsfullTell them apart

Quick tell: foule is a noun, full is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“foule” is a noun and “full” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2,616
“foule” frequency rank
#7,698
“full” frequency rank
10314
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature foule full
Definition Action de fouler les draps. On dit plutôt foulage de nos jours. Plein.

Same sound, different letters: foule vs full

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 3 letters.

5 ch
foule
4 ch
full

Same sound, different spelling - foule / full

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: foule and full carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ful\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10314, 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\. full is at rank #7,698, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ful\.

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 10314, this pair ranks #413,439 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of foule vs full

Shared letters: flu. Private to "foule": eo. Private to "full": -.

"foule" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "full" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fouleffoule · folue · fouel · foulle · fuole · ofule
  • fullffull · flul · ful · ufll

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "foule" and "full" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "foule" is a noun and "full" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "foule" vs "full" - which ranks higher?
"foule" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,616 in our French list, against #7,698 for "full". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "foule" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "full" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #413,439 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "foule" and "full" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Feld vs full". 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 #413,439 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