foutvsfrontWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: fout is a verb, front is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“fout” is a verb and “front” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#3,403
“fout” frequency rank
#1,393
“front” frequency rank
4796
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fout front
Definition Troisième personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de foutre. Partie antérieure de quelque chose. → voir de front

Letter map: fout vs front

Shared letters muted; letters that set fout and front apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

4 ch
fout
5 ch
front

Grammar separator: fout vs front

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: fout is averb and frontanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4796, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fout is recorded at frequency rank #3,403, classified as averb. front is at rank #1,393, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fʁɔ̃\.

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 4796, this pair ranks #430,670 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of fout vs front

Shared letters: fot. Private to "fout": u. Private to "front": nr.

"fout" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "front" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • foutffout · fotu · foutt · fuot · ofut
  • frontffront · fornt · frnot · fronnt · frontt · frotn · frront · rfont

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "fout" and "front" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fout" is a verb and "front" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "fout" or "front" show up more?
"front" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,393 in our French list, against #3,403 for "fout". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "fout" and "front".

  • Full dictionary entry for "fout" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "front" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #430,670 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fout" and "front" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fouets vs fout". 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 #430,670 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