facevsfaecesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“face” and “faeces” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#335
“face” frequency rank
#41,118
“faeces” frequency rank
41453
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature face faeces
Definition The front part of the head of a human or other animal, featuring the eyes, nose, and mouth, and the surrounding area. Alternative spelling of feces.

Letter map: face vs faeces

Shared letters muted; letters that set face and faeces apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

4 ch
face
6 ch
faeces

Spelling & dictionary notes on face vs faeces

face and faeces are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41453, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

face is recorded at frequency rank #335, classified as anoun, pronounced /feɪs/. faeces is at rank #41,118, 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 41453, this pair ranks #258,261 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of face vs faeces

Shared letters: acef. Private to "face": -. Private to "faeces": s.

"face" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "faeces" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • faceafce · facce · faec · fcae · fface
  • faecesafeces · facees · faecces · faecess · faecse · faeecs · feaces · ffaeces

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "face" and "faeces" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "face" vs "faeces" - which ranks higher?
"face" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #335 in our English list, against #41,118 for "faeces". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "face" and "faeces".

  • Full dictionary entry for "face" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "faeces" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #258,261 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "face" and "faeces" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "faeces vs Fawkes". 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 #258,261 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list