fournisvsfoutaisWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: fournis is a adjective, foutais is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“fournis” is an adjective and “foutais” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#7,831
“fournis” frequency rank
#28,175
“foutais” frequency rank
36006
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fournis foutais
Definition Masculin pluriel de fourni. Première personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de foutre.

Where the eye mixes fournis and foutais

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. fournis (CVVCCVC) and foutais (CVVCVVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
fournis
7 ch
foutais

Visual trap between fournis and foutais

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: fournis is \fuʁ.ni\ while foutais is \fu.tɛ\. 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 (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 36006, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fournis is recorded at frequency rank #7,831, classified as anadj, pronounced \fuʁ.ni\. foutais is at rank #28,175, tagged as averb, pronounced \fu.tɛ\.

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 36006, this pair ranks #272,663 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of fournis vs foutais

Shared letters: fiosu. Private to "fournis": nr. Private to "foutais": at.

"fournis" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC  ·  "foutais" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fournis ← ffournis · forunis · founris · fourins · fourniss · fournnis · fournsi · fourrnis
  • foutais ← ffoutais · fotuais · fouatis · foutaiss · foutasi · foutias · fouttais · fuotais

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "fournis" for "foutais" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fournis" is an adjective and "foutais" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "fournis" or "foutais"?
"fournis" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,831 in our French list, against #28,175 for "foutais". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "fournis" and "foutais" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "fournis" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "foutais" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #272,663 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fournis" and "foutais" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fortis vs foutais". 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 #272,663 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