Which to use
“furet” and “furie” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #28,567
- “furet” frequency rank
- #23,873
- “furie” frequency rank
- 52440
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | furet | furie |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Petit carnivore de la famille des mustélidés, forme domestique (Mustela putorius furo) du putois (Mustela putorius putorius). | Divinité infernale dont la fonction était de tourmenter les méchants, les criminels, soit dans les enfers, soit sur la terre. |
Where the eye mixes furet and furie
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. furet (CVCVC) and furie (CVCVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Why the eye confuses furet with furie
A purely visual mix-up. furet (\fy.ʁɛ\) and furie (\fy.ʁi\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52440, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
furet is recorded at frequency rank #28,567, classified as anoun, pronounced \fy.ʁɛ\. furie is at rank #23,873, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fy.ʁi\.
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 52440, this pair ranks #147,692 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of furet vs furie
Shared letters: efru. Private to "furet": t. Private to "furie": i.
"furet" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "furie" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "furet" and "furie" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "furet" or "furie"?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "furet" and "furie" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "furet" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "furie" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #147,692 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "furet" and "furie" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "furet vs fuse". 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 #147,692 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.