Which to use
“face” is a noun and “fast” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #335
- “face” frequency rank
- #767
- “fast” frequency rank
- 1102
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | face | fast |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | The front part of the head of a human or other animal, featuring the eyes, nose, and mouth, and the surrounding area. | Firmly or securely fixed in place; stable. |
Where the eye mixes face and fast
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: face is /feɪs/ while fast is /fɑːst/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1102, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
face is recorded at frequency rank #335, classified as anoun, pronounced /feɪs/. fast is at rank #767, tagged as anadj, pronounced /fɑːst/.
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 1102, this pair ranks #528,093 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of face vs fast
Shared letters: af. Private to "face": ce. Private to "fast": st.
"face" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "fast" · 4 letters · shape CVCC