facievsfamineConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#45,918
“facie” frequency rank
#12,773
“famine” frequency rank
58691
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature facie famine
Definition Diminutive of face. Extreme shortage of food in a region.

Letter map: facie vs famine

Shared letters muted; letters that set facie and famine apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

5 ch
facie
6 ch
famine

Spelling & dictionary notes on facie vs famine

facie and famine 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58691, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

facie is recorded at frequency rank #45,918, classified as anoun. famine is at rank #12,773, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈfæmɪn/.

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 58691, this pair ranks #110,921 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of facie vs famine

Shared letters: aefi. Private to "facie": c. Private to "famine": mn.

"facie" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "famine" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • facieafcie · faccie · facei · faice · fcaie · ffacie
  • famineafmine · faimne · famien · faminne · fammine · famnie · ffamine · fmaine

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "facie" for "famine" ever safe?
No. They differ by 1 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: "facie" vs "famine" - which ranks higher?
"famine" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,773 in our English list, against #45,918 for "facie". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "facie" vs "famine" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "facie" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "famine" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #110,921 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "facie" and "famine" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "facie vs fancier". 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 #110,921 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