Easily Confused Words: Feet vs. Feat

Feet and feat are easily confused words. They are also homophones, meaning they sound the same, but are spelled differently and mean different things.

The spell-check application of most word processing software programs would not catch a slip-up of these two words. Spell-check is looking for words that aren’t in its dictionary, and words that resemble words in its dictionary, but are possibly spelled wrong. Spell-check isn’t perfect. It doesn’t know and can’t guess what word you wanted, or what word you meant, it can only judge the words on the page. If you used words that are all spelled correctly, it gives you a pass anyway.

Autocorrect suggests words that start with the same letters. It’s suggesting what word you may want to save time, but quite often, its suggestions are pretty off base. They don’t help you out, but they do make you laugh.

Feet (pronounced “feet”; rhymes with wheat, teat, meat) is a noun. It means the part of the body at the end of the legs. Feet enable us to balance, walk, run, dance, etc.

Feat (pronounced “feet”; rhymes with wheat, teat, meat) is a noun. It means an achievement, or an impressive goal or task performance.

The following story uses both words correctly:

Phoebe was training hard to take her gymnastics skills to the highest levels. Her unique choreography with her flips, tumbles and cartwheel combinations were an incredible feat. The hard part was landing on both feet without stepping to adjust her balance.

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