diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index db1031d68..0e66ececf 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ requires = [
     "cymem>=2.0.2,<2.1.0",
     "preshed>=3.0.2,<3.1.0",
     "murmurhash>=0.28.0,<1.1.0",
-    "thinc>=8.0.0a17,<8.0.0a20",
+    "thinc>=8.0.0a18,<8.0.0a20",
     "blis>=0.4.0,<0.5.0",
     "pytokenizations"
 ]
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index 760e0c0ea..7b6e0c9e9 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 # Our libraries
 cymem>=2.0.2,<2.1.0
 preshed>=3.0.2,<3.1.0
-thinc>=8.0.0a17,<8.0.0a20
+thinc>=8.0.0a18,<8.0.0a20
 blis>=0.4.0,<0.5.0
 ml_datasets>=0.1.1
 murmurhash>=0.28.0,<1.1.0
diff --git a/setup.cfg b/setup.cfg
index a1c881d10..c7f5ce7f2 100644
--- a/setup.cfg
+++ b/setup.cfg
@@ -34,13 +34,13 @@ setup_requires =
     cymem>=2.0.2,<2.1.0
     preshed>=3.0.2,<3.1.0
     murmurhash>=0.28.0,<1.1.0
-    thinc>=8.0.0a17,<8.0.0a20
+    thinc>=8.0.0a18,<8.0.0a20
 install_requires =
     # Our libraries
     murmurhash>=0.28.0,<1.1.0
     cymem>=2.0.2,<2.1.0
     preshed>=3.0.2,<3.1.0
-    thinc>=8.0.0a17,<8.0.0a20
+    thinc>=8.0.0a18,<8.0.0a20
     blis>=0.4.0,<0.5.0
     wasabi>=0.7.0,<1.1.0
     srsly>=2.1.0,<3.0.0
diff --git a/spacy/errors.py b/spacy/errors.py
index 4f234a494..4e3ca2a9b 100644
--- a/spacy/errors.py
+++ b/spacy/errors.py
@@ -568,7 +568,3 @@ class MatchPatternError(ValueError):
             pattern_errors = "\n".join([f"- {e}" for e in error_msgs])
             msg += f"\nPattern {pattern_idx}:\n{pattern_errors}\n"
         ValueError.__init__(self, msg)
-
-
-class AlignmentError(ValueError):
-    pass
diff --git a/spacy/tests/lang/en/test_prefix_suffix_infix.py b/spacy/tests/lang/en/test_prefix_suffix_infix.py
index 9efcc1015..9dfb54fd6 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/lang/en/test_prefix_suffix_infix.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/lang/en/test_prefix_suffix_infix.py
@@ -119,9 +119,8 @@ def test_en_tokenizer_splits_period_abbr(en_tokenizer):
     assert tokens[4].text == "Mr."
 
 
-@pytest.mark.xfail
+@pytest.mark.xfail(reason="Issue #225 - not yet implemented")
 def test_en_tokenizer_splits_em_dash_infix(en_tokenizer):
-    # Re Issue #225
     tokens = en_tokenizer(
         """Will this road take me to Puddleton?\u2014No, """
         """you'll have to walk there.\u2014Ariel."""
diff --git a/spacy/tests/lang/en/test_sbd.py b/spacy/tests/lang/en/test_sbd.py
index ba7b2f2cf..7c2e2e0bd 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/lang/en/test_sbd.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/lang/en/test_sbd.py
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ def test_en_sbd_single_punct(en_tokenizer, text, punct):
     assert sum(len(sent) for sent in doc.sents) == len(doc)
 
 
-@pytest.mark.xfail
+@pytest.mark.skip(reason="The step_through API was removed (but should be brought back)")
 def test_en_sentence_breaks(en_tokenizer, en_parser):
     # fmt: off
     text = "This is a sentence . This is another one ."
diff --git a/spacy/tests/lang/fr/test_exceptions.py b/spacy/tests/lang/fr/test_exceptions.py
index 91c0a0a4d..4b7ccad65 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/lang/fr/test_exceptions.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/lang/fr/test_exceptions.py
@@ -81,13 +81,14 @@ def test_fr_tokenizer_handles_title(fr_tokenizer):
     assert tokens[2].lemma_ == "ce"
 
 
-@pytest.mark.xfail
 def test_fr_tokenizer_handles_title_2(fr_tokenizer):
     text = "Est-ce pas génial?"
     tokens = fr_tokenizer(text)
-    assert len(tokens) == 6
+    assert len(tokens) == 5
     assert tokens[0].text == "Est"
     assert tokens[0].lemma_ == "être"
+    assert tokens[1].text == "-ce"
+    assert tokens[1].lemma_ == "ce"
 
 
 def test_fr_tokenizer_handles_title_3(fr_tokenizer):
diff --git a/spacy/tests/lang/uk/test_tokenizer.py b/spacy/tests/lang/uk/test_tokenizer.py
index eb647a041..91ae057f8 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/lang/uk/test_tokenizer.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/lang/uk/test_tokenizer.py
@@ -89,7 +89,7 @@ def test_uk_tokenizer_splits_open_appostrophe(uk_tokenizer, text):
     assert tokens[0].text == "'"
 
 
-@pytest.mark.xfail(reason="See #3327")
+@pytest.mark.skip(reason="See Issue #3327 and PR #3329")
 @pytest.mark.parametrize("text", ["Тест''"])
 def test_uk_tokenizer_splits_double_end_quote(uk_tokenizer, text):
     tokens = uk_tokenizer(text)
diff --git a/spacy/tests/parser/test_ner.py b/spacy/tests/parser/test_ner.py
index ad7688344..b71285a34 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/parser/test_ner.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/parser/test_ner.py
@@ -83,7 +83,7 @@ def test_get_oracle_moves_negative_entities2(tsys, vocab):
     assert names
 
 
-@pytest.mark.xfail(reason="Maybe outdated? Unsure")
+@pytest.mark.skip(reason="Maybe outdated? Unsure")
 def test_get_oracle_moves_negative_O(tsys, vocab):
     doc = Doc(vocab, words=["A", "B", "C", "D"])
     entity_annots = ["O", "!O", "O", "!O"]
@@ -95,7 +95,7 @@ def test_get_oracle_moves_negative_O(tsys, vocab):
 
 # We can't easily represent this on a Doc object. Not sure what the best solution
 # would be, but I don't think it's an important use case?
-@pytest.mark.xfail(reason="No longer supported")
+@pytest.mark.skip(reason="No longer supported")
 def test_oracle_moves_missing_B(en_vocab):
     words = ["B", "52", "Bomber"]
     biluo_tags = [None, None, "L-PRODUCT"]
@@ -121,7 +121,7 @@ def test_oracle_moves_missing_B(en_vocab):
 
 # We can't easily represent this on a Doc object. Not sure what the best solution
 # would be, but I don't think it's an important use case?
-@pytest.mark.xfail(reason="No longer supported")
+@pytest.mark.skip(reason="No longer supported")
 def test_oracle_moves_whitespace(en_vocab):
     words = ["production", "\n", "of", "Northrop", "\n", "Corp.", "\n", "'s", "radar"]
     biluo_tags = ["O", "O", "O", "B-ORG", None, "I-ORG", "L-ORG", "O", "O"]
diff --git a/spacy/tests/parser/test_neural_parser.py b/spacy/tests/parser/test_neural_parser.py
index 93d92e26b..b75d2f9e5 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/parser/test_neural_parser.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/parser/test_neural_parser.py
@@ -82,13 +82,13 @@ def test_update_doc(parser, model, doc, gold):
     parser.update([example], sgd=optimize)
 
 
-@pytest.mark.xfail
+@pytest.mark.skip(reason="No longer supported")
 def test_predict_doc_beam(parser, model, doc):
     parser.model = model
     parser(doc, beam_width=32, beam_density=0.001)
 
 
-@pytest.mark.xfail
+@pytest.mark.skip(reason="No longer supported")
 def test_update_doc_beam(parser, model, doc, gold):
     parser.model = model
 
diff --git a/spacy/tests/parser/test_parse.py b/spacy/tests/parser/test_parse.py
index 5b9a1cd8e..b1c74e2e9 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/parser/test_parse.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/parser/test_parse.py
@@ -33,8 +33,8 @@ def test_parser_root(en_tokenizer):
         assert t.dep != 0, t.text
 
 
-@pytest.mark.xfail
-# @pytest.mark.parametrize("text", ["Hello"])
+@pytest.mark.skip(reason="The step_through API was removed (but should be brought back)")
+@pytest.mark.parametrize("text", ["Hello"])
 def test_parser_parse_one_word_sentence(en_tokenizer, en_parser, text):
     tokens = en_tokenizer(text)
     doc = get_doc(
@@ -47,8 +47,7 @@ def test_parser_parse_one_word_sentence(en_tokenizer, en_parser, text):
     assert doc[0].dep != 0
 
 
-# We removed the step_through API a while ago. we should bring it back though
-@pytest.mark.xfail(reason="Unsupported")
+@pytest.mark.skip(reason="The step_through API was removed (but should be brought back)")
 def test_parser_initial(en_tokenizer, en_parser):
     text = "I ate the pizza with anchovies."
     # heads = [1, 0, 1, -2, -3, -1, -5]
@@ -93,8 +92,7 @@ def test_parser_merge_pp(en_tokenizer):
     assert doc[3].text == "occurs"
 
 
-# We removed the step_through API a while ago. we should bring it back though
-@pytest.mark.xfail(reason="Unsupported")
+@pytest.mark.skip(reason="The step_through API was removed (but should be brought back)")
 def test_parser_arc_eager_finalize_state(en_tokenizer, en_parser):
     text = "a b c d e"
 
diff --git a/spacy/tests/parser/test_space_attachment.py b/spacy/tests/parser/test_space_attachment.py
index 59ae4e629..db25a25c0 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/parser/test_space_attachment.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/parser/test_space_attachment.py
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ def test_parser_sentence_space(en_tokenizer):
     assert len(list(doc.sents)) == 2
 
 
-@pytest.mark.xfail
+@pytest.mark.skip(reason="The step_through API was removed (but should be brought back)")
 def test_parser_space_attachment_leading(en_tokenizer, en_parser):
     text = "\t \n This is a sentence ."
     heads = [1, 1, 0, 1, -2, -3]
@@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ def test_parser_space_attachment_leading(en_tokenizer, en_parser):
     assert stepwise.stack == set([2])
 
 
-@pytest.mark.xfail
+@pytest.mark.skip(reason="The step_through API was removed (but should be brought back)")
 def test_parser_space_attachment_intermediate_trailing(en_tokenizer, en_parser):
     text = "This is \t a \t\n \n sentence . \n\n \n"
     heads = [1, 0, -1, 2, -1, -4, -5, -1]
@@ -64,7 +64,7 @@ def test_parser_space_attachment_intermediate_trailing(en_tokenizer, en_parser):
 
 
 @pytest.mark.parametrize("text,length", [(["\n"], 1), (["\n", "\t", "\n\n", "\t"], 4)])
-@pytest.mark.xfail
+@pytest.mark.skip(reason="The step_through API was removed (but should be brought back)")
 def test_parser_space_attachment_space(en_tokenizer, en_parser, text, length):
     doc = Doc(en_parser.vocab, words=text)
     assert len(doc) == length
diff --git a/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue1-1000.py b/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue1-1000.py
index bfca72853..abb3ac32b 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue1-1000.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue1-1000.py
@@ -1,10 +1,13 @@
 import pytest
 import random
+
+from spacy import util
+from spacy.gold import Example
 from spacy.matcher import Matcher
 from spacy.attrs import IS_PUNCT, ORTH, LOWER
 from spacy.symbols import POS, VERB
 from spacy.vocab import Vocab
-from spacy.language import Language
+from spacy.lang.en import English
 from spacy.lemmatizer import Lemmatizer
 from spacy.lookups import Lookups
 from spacy.tokens import Doc, Span
@@ -141,14 +144,6 @@ def test_issue588(en_vocab):
         matcher.add("TEST", [[]])
 
 
-@pytest.mark.xfail
-def test_issue589():
-    vocab = Vocab()
-    vocab.strings.set_frozen(True)
-    doc = Doc(vocab, words=["whata"])
-    assert doc
-
-
 def test_issue590(en_vocab):
     """Test overlapping matches"""
     doc = Doc(en_vocab, words=["n", "=", "1", ";", "a", ":", "5", "%"])
@@ -285,7 +280,7 @@ def test_control_issue792(en_tokenizer, text):
     assert "".join([token.text_with_ws for token in doc]) == text
 
 
-@pytest.mark.xfail
+@pytest.mark.skip(reason="Can not be fixed unless with variable-width lookbehinds, cf. PR #3218")
 @pytest.mark.parametrize(
     "text,tokens",
     [
@@ -417,8 +412,7 @@ def test_issue957(en_tokenizer):
         assert doc
 
 
-@pytest.mark.xfail
-def test_issue999(train_data):
+def test_issue999():
     """Test that adding entities and resuming training works passably OK.
     There are two issues here:
     1) We have to re-add labels. This isn't very nice.
@@ -432,27 +426,27 @@ def test_issue999(train_data):
         ["hello", []],
         ["hi", []],
         ["i'm looking for a place to eat", []],
-        ["i'm looking for a place in the north of town", [[31, 36, "LOCATION"]]],
-        ["show me chinese restaurants", [[8, 15, "CUISINE"]]],
-        ["show me chines restaurants", [[8, 14, "CUISINE"]]],
+        ["i'm looking for a place in the north of town", [(31, 36, "LOCATION")]],
+        ["show me chinese restaurants", [(8, 15, "CUISINE")]],
+        ["show me chines restaurants", [(8, 14, "CUISINE")]],
     ]
 
-    nlp = Language()
-    ner = nlp.create_pipe("ner")
+    nlp = English()
+    ner = nlp.create_pipe("ner", {"learn_rate": 0.001})  # will need to be {"model": ...} in upcoming PR
     nlp.add_pipe(ner)
     for _, offsets in TRAIN_DATA:
         for start, end, label in offsets:
             ner.add_label(label)
     nlp.begin_training()
-    ner.model.learn_rate = 0.001
-    for itn in range(100):
+    for itn in range(20):
         random.shuffle(TRAIN_DATA)
         for raw_text, entity_offsets in TRAIN_DATA:
-            nlp.update((raw_text, {"entities": entity_offsets}))
+            example = Example.from_dict(nlp.make_doc(raw_text), {"entities": entity_offsets})
+            nlp.update([example])
 
     with make_tempdir() as model_dir:
         nlp.to_disk(model_dir)
-        nlp2 = Language().from_disk(model_dir)
+        nlp2 = util.load_model_from_path(model_dir)
 
     for raw_text, entity_offsets in TRAIN_DATA:
         doc = nlp2(raw_text)
@@ -461,6 +455,6 @@ def test_issue999(train_data):
             if (start, end) in ents:
                 assert ents[(start, end)] == label
                 break
-        else:
-            if entity_offsets:
-                raise Exception(ents)
+            else:
+                if entity_offsets:
+                    raise Exception(ents)
diff --git a/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue1001-1500.py b/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue1001-1500.py
index aaff951e5..a9b54fc6d 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue1001-1500.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue1001-1500.py
@@ -32,8 +32,8 @@ def test_issue1061():
     assert "MATH" not in [w.text for w in doc]
 
 
-@pytest.mark.xfail(
-    reason="g is split of as a unit, as the suffix regular expression can not look back further (variable-width)"
+@pytest.mark.skip(
+    reason="Can not be fixed without variable-width look-behind (which we don't want)"
 )
 def test_issue1235():
     """Test that g is not split of if preceded by a number and a letter"""
diff --git a/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue2001-2500.py b/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue2001-2500.py
index 8b998d216..1965c0f05 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue2001-2500.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue2001-2500.py
@@ -10,7 +10,9 @@ from spacy.lang.en import English
 from ..util import add_vecs_to_vocab, get_doc
 
 
-@pytest.mark.xfail
+@pytest.mark.skip(
+    reason="Can not be fixed without iterative looping between prefix/suffix and infix"
+)
 def test_issue2070():
     """Test that checks that a dot followed by a quote is handled
     appropriately.
diff --git a/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue3001-3500.py b/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue3001-3500.py
index ca4733f0d..599f0900a 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue3001-3500.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue3001-3500.py
@@ -226,7 +226,7 @@ def test_issue3412():
     assert best_rows[0] == 2
 
 
-@pytest.mark.xfail(reason="default suffix rules avoid one upper-case letter before dot")
+@pytest.mark.skip(reason="default suffix rules avoid one upper-case letter before dot")
 def test_issue3449():
     nlp = English()
     nlp.add_pipe(nlp.create_pipe("sentencizer"))
diff --git a/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue3501-4000.py b/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue3501-4000.py
index 5e2ee902c..80b32cfd6 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue3501-4000.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue3501-4000.py
@@ -178,12 +178,12 @@ def test_issue3549(en_vocab):
         matcher.add("BAD", [[{"X": "Y"}]])
 
 
-@pytest.mark.xfail
+@pytest.mark.skip("Matching currently only works on strings and integers")
 def test_issue3555(en_vocab):
     """Test that custom extensions with default None don't break matcher."""
     Token.set_extension("issue3555", default=None)
     matcher = Matcher(en_vocab)
-    pattern = [{"LEMMA": "have"}, {"_": {"issue3555": True}}]
+    pattern = [{"ORTH": "have"}, {"_": {"issue3555": True}}]
     matcher.add("TEST", [pattern])
     doc = Doc(en_vocab, words=["have", "apple"])
     matcher(doc)
diff --git a/spacy/tests/serialize/test_serialize_vocab_strings.py b/spacy/tests/serialize/test_serialize_vocab_strings.py
index e570b1025..44930247a 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/serialize/test_serialize_vocab_strings.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/serialize/test_serialize_vocab_strings.py
@@ -11,7 +11,6 @@ test_strings_attrs = [(["rats", "are", "cute"], "Hello")]
 default_strings = ("_SP", "POS=SPACE")
 
 
-@pytest.mark.xfail
 @pytest.mark.parametrize("text", ["rat"])
 def test_serialize_vocab(en_vocab, text):
     text_hash = en_vocab.strings.add(text)
diff --git a/spacy/tests/test_gold.py b/spacy/tests/test_gold.py
index efad7f465..7fb7a1000 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/test_gold.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/test_gold.py
@@ -1,5 +1,4 @@
 import numpy
-from spacy.errors import AlignmentError
 from spacy.gold import biluo_tags_from_offsets, offsets_from_biluo_tags
 from spacy.gold import spans_from_biluo_tags, iob_to_biluo
 from spacy.gold import Corpus, docs_to_json
@@ -544,42 +543,6 @@ def test_roundtrip_docs_to_docbin(doc):
     assert cats["BAKING"] == reloaded_example.reference.cats["BAKING"]
 
 
-# Hm, not sure where misalignment check would be handled? In the components too?
-# I guess that does make sense. A text categorizer doesn't care if it's
-# misaligned...
-@pytest.mark.xfail(reason="Outdated")
-def test_ignore_misaligned(doc):
-    nlp = English()
-    text = doc.text
-    with make_tempdir() as tmpdir:
-        json_file = tmpdir / "test.json"
-        data = [docs_to_json(doc)]
-        data[0]["paragraphs"][0]["raw"] = text.replace("Sarah", "Jane")
-        # write to JSON train dicts
-        srsly.write_json(json_file, data)
-        goldcorpus = Corpus(str(json_file), str(json_file))
-
-        with pytest.raises(AlignmentError):
-            train_reloaded_example = next(goldcorpus.train_dataset(nlp))
-
-    with make_tempdir() as tmpdir:
-        json_file = tmpdir / "test.json"
-        data = [docs_to_json(doc)]
-        data[0]["paragraphs"][0]["raw"] = text.replace("Sarah", "Jane")
-        # write to JSON train dicts
-        srsly.write_json(json_file, data)
-        goldcorpus = Corpus(str(json_file), str(json_file))
-
-        # doesn't raise an AlignmentError, but there is nothing to iterate over
-        # because the only example can't be aligned
-        train_reloaded_example = list(
-            goldcorpus.train_dataset(nlp, ignore_misaligned=True)
-        )
-        assert len(train_reloaded_example) == 0
-
-
-# We probably want the orth variant logic back, but this test won't be quite
-# right -- we need to go from DocBin.
 def test_make_orth_variants(doc):
     nlp = English()
     with make_tempdir() as tmpdir:
diff --git a/spacy/tests/test_tok2vec.py b/spacy/tests/test_tok2vec.py
index ee1f9dead..32f4c5774 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/test_tok2vec.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/test_tok2vec.py
@@ -7,15 +7,26 @@ from spacy.tokens import Doc
 from .util import get_batch
 
 
-# This fails in Thinc v7.3.1. Need to push patch
-@pytest.mark.xfail
 def test_empty_doc():
     width = 128
     embed_size = 2000
     vocab = Vocab()
     doc = Doc(vocab, words=[])
-    # TODO: fix tok2vec arguments
-    tok2vec = build_Tok2Vec_model(width, embed_size, dropout=None)
+    tok2vec = build_Tok2Vec_model(
+        width,
+        embed_size,
+        pretrained_vectors=None,
+        conv_depth=4,
+        bilstm_depth=0,
+        window_size=1,
+        maxout_pieces=3,
+        subword_features=True,
+        char_embed=False,
+        nM=64,
+        nC=8,
+        dropout=None,
+    )
+    tok2vec.initialize()
     vectors, backprop = tok2vec.begin_update([doc])
     assert len(vectors) == 1
     assert vectors[0].shape == (0, width)
diff --git a/spacy/tests/vocab_vectors/test_stringstore.py b/spacy/tests/vocab_vectors/test_stringstore.py
index c71d5f3f2..a0f8016af 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/vocab_vectors/test_stringstore.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/vocab_vectors/test_stringstore.py
@@ -95,22 +95,3 @@ def test_stringstore_to_bytes(stringstore, text):
     serialized = stringstore.to_bytes()
     new_stringstore = StringStore().from_bytes(serialized)
     assert new_stringstore[store] == text
-
-
-@pytest.mark.xfail
-@pytest.mark.parametrize("text", [["a", "b", "c"]])
-def test_stringstore_freeze_oov(stringstore, text):
-    """Test the possibly temporary workaround of flushing the stringstore of
-    OOV words."""
-    assert stringstore[text[0]] == 1
-    assert stringstore[text[1]] == 2
-
-    stringstore.set_frozen(True)
-    s = stringstore[text[2]]
-    assert s >= 4
-    s_ = stringstore[s]
-    assert s_ == text[2]
-
-    stringstore.flush_oov()
-    with pytest.raises(IndexError):
-        s_ = stringstore[s]