facesvsfareConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#2,536
“faces” frequency rank
#7,790
“fare” frequency rank
10326
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature faces fare
Definition plural of face A going; journey; travel; voyage; course; passage.

Where the eye mixes faces and fare

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

5 ch
faces
4 ch
fare

Visual trap between faces and fare

A purely visual mix-up. faces (/ˈfeɪsɪz/) and fare (/fɛə/) 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 10326, 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/. fare is at rank #7,790, tagged as anoun, pronounced /fɛə/.

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 10326, this pair ranks #492,902 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of faces vs fare

Shared letters: aef. Private to "faces": cs. Private to "fare": r.

"faces" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "fare" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • facesafces · facces · facess · facse · faecs · fcaes · ffaces
  • fareafre · farre · ffare · frae

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "faces" and "fare" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ˈfeɪsɪz/ versus /fɛə/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "faces" vs "fare" - which ranks higher?
"faces" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,536 in our English list, against #7,790 for "fare". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "faces" and "fare" 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 "fare" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #492,902 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "faces" and "fare" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fare vs Fars". 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 #492,902 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