fonvsfortWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: fon is a adjective, fort is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“fon” is an adjective and “fort” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#44,372
“fon” frequency rank
#11,467
“fort” frequency rank
55839
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fon fort
Definition relativo à etnia dos fons forte

Letter map: fon vs fort

Shared letters muted; letters that set fon and fort apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. fon runs 3 letters (CVC) against fort's 4 (CVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
fon
4 ch
fort

Grammar separator: fon vs fort

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: fon is anadjective and fortanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55839, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fon is recorded at frequency rank #44,372, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈfõ/. fort is at rank #11,467, tagged as anoun.

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 55839, this pair ranks #10,342 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of fon vs fort

Shared letters: fo. Private to "fon": n. Private to "fort": rt.

"fon" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "fort" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fort ← ffort · forrt · fortt · fotr · frot · ofrt

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "fon" and "fort" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fon" is an adjective and "fort" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "fon" or "fort"?
"fort" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,467 in our Portuguese list, against #44,372 for "fon". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "fon" and "fort". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "fon" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fort" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #10,342 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fon" and "fort" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fern vs fon". 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 #10,342 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list