Which to use
“furet” is a noun and “fuse” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #28,567
- “furet” frequency rank
- #46,778
- “fuse” frequency rank
- 75345
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | furet | fuse |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Petit carnivore de la famille des mustélidés, forme domestique (Mustela putorius furo) du putois (Mustela putorius putorius). | Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent du verbe fuser. |
Where the eye mixes furet and fuse
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. furet runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against fuse's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses furet with fuse
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: furet is \fy.ʁɛ\ while fuse is \fyz\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 75345, 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\. fuse is at rank #46,778, tagged as averb, pronounced \fyz\.
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 75345, this pair ranks #34,358 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of furet vs fuse
Shared letters: efu. Private to "furet": rt. Private to "fuse": s.
"furet" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "fuse" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "furet" for "fuse" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "furet" or "fuse" show up more?
After this comparison
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "furet" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "fuse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #34,358 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "furet" and "fuse" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Fee 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 #34,358 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.