Which to use
“facile” is an adjective and “family” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #46,456
- “facile” frequency rank
- #205
- “family” frequency rank
- 46661
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | facile | family |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Easy; contemptibly easy. | A group of people who are closely related to one another (by blood, marriage or adoption); kin; in particular, a set of parents and their children; an immediate family. |
Where the eye mixes facile and family
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. facile and family follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between facile and family
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: facile is /ˈfæs.aɪl/ while family is /ˈfæ.m(ɪ.)li/. 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 (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46661, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
facile is recorded at frequency rank #46,456, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈfæs.aɪl/. family is at rank #205, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈfæ.m(ɪ.)li/.
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 46661, this pair ranks #209,644 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of facile vs family
Shared letters: afil. Private to "facile": ce. Private to "family": my.
"facile" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV · "family" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "facile" for "family" ever safe?
Which is more common, "facile" or "family"?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "facile" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "family" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #209,644 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "facile" and "family" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "facie vs facile". 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 #209,644 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.