facedvsflakedWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#3,057
“faced” frequency rank
#49,922
“flaked” frequency rank
52979
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature faced flaked
Definition simple past and past participle of face simple past and past participle of flake

Where the eye mixes faced and flaked

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. faced runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against flaked's 6 (CCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
faced
6 ch
flaked

Look-alike desk: faced vs flaked

A purely visual mix-up. faced (/feɪst/) and flaked (/fleɪkt/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52979, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

faced is recorded at frequency rank #3,057, classified as averb, pronounced /feɪst/. flaked is at rank #49,922, tagged as averb, pronounced /fleɪkt/.

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 52979, this pair ranks #152,662 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of faced vs flaked

Shared letters: adef. Private to "faced": c. Private to "flaked": kl.

"faced" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "flaked" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • faced ← afced · facced · facde · facedd · faecd · fcaed · ffaced
  • flaked ← falked · fflaked · flaekd · flakde · flakedd · flakked · flkaed · fllaked

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "faced" for "flaked" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/feɪst/ versus /fleɪkt/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "faced" vs "flaked" - which ranks higher?
"faced" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,057 in our English list, against #49,922 for "flaked". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "faced" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "flaked" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #152,662 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "faced" and "flaked" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "flaked vs flamed". 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 #152,662 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