furievsfusilWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“furie” and “fusil” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#23,873
“furie” frequency rank
#5,661
“fusil” frequency rank
29534
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature furie fusil
Definition Divinité infernale dont la fonction était de tourmenter les méchants, les criminels, soit dans les enfers, soit sur la terre. Petite pièce d’acier avec laquelle on battait un silex pour en tirer du feu.

Where the eye mixes furie and fusil

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. furie (CVCVV) and fusil (CVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
furie
5 ch
fusil

Visual trap between furie and fusil

A purely visual mix-up. furie (\fy.ʁi\) and fusil (\fy.zi\) 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 29534, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

furie is recorded at frequency rank #23,873, classified as anoun, pronounced \fy.ʁi\. fusil is at rank #5,661, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fy.zi\.

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 29534, this pair ranks #316,075 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of furie vs fusil

Shared letters: fiu. Private to "furie": er. Private to "fusil": ls.

"furie" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "fusil" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • furie ← ffurie · fruie · fuire · furei · furrie · ufrie
  • fusil ← ffusil · fsuil · fuisl · fusill · fusli · fussil · ufsil

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "furie" and "fusil" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\fy.ʁi\ versus \fy.zi\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "furie" or "fusil"?
"fusil" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,661 in our French list, against #23,873 for "furie". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "furie" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fusil" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #316,075 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "furie" and "fusil" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "furie vs furtive". 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 #316,075 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