facesvsFaheyTell them apart

Quick tell: faces is a noun, Fahey is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“faces” is a noun and “Fahey” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2,536
“faces” frequency rank
#45,367
“Fahey” frequency rank
47903
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature faces Fahey
Definition plural of face A surname from Irish.

Where the eye mixes faces and Fahey

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
faces
5 ch
Fahey

Visual trap between faces and Fahey

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: faces is /ˈfeɪsɪz/ while Fahey is /ˈfæhi/. 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 name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47903, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

faces is recorded at frequency rank #2,536, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈfeɪsɪz/. Fahey is at rank #45,367, tagged as aname, pronounced /ˈfæhi/.

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 47903, this pair ranks #198,083 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of faces vs Fahey

Shared letters: aef. Private to "faces": cs. Private to "Fahey": hy.

"faces" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "Fahey" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • facesafces · facces · facess · facse · faecs · fcaes · ffaces
  • Faheyafhey · faehy · faheyy · fahhey · fahye · ffahey · fhaey

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "faces" for "Fahey" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "faces" is a noun and "Fahey" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "faces" or "Fahey" show up more?
"faces" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,536 in our English list, against #45,367 for "Fahey". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "faces" and "Fahey" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "faces" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Fahey" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #198,083 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "faces" and "Fahey" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fader vs Fahey". 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 #198,083 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