Which to use
“fails” is a verb and “FIS” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #4,600
- “fails” frequency rank
- #40,245
- “FIS” frequency rank
- 44845
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | fails | FIS |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | third-person singular simple present indicative of fail | Initialism of flight information service. |
Letter map: fails vs FIS
Shared letters muted; letters that set fails and FIS apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. fails runs 5 letters (CVVCC) against FIS's 3 (CVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Part-of-speech tell for fails / FIS
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: fails is averb and FISanoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44845, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
fails is recorded at frequency rank #4,600, classified as averb, pronounced /feɪlz/. FIS is at rank #40,245, tagged as anoun.
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 44845, this pair ranks #226,794 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of fails vs FIS
Shared letters: fis. Private to "fails": al. Private to "FIS": -.
"fails" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC · "FIS" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- fails ← afils · faills · failss · faisl · falis · ffails · fials
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "fails" for "FIS" ever safe?
Which is more common, "fails" or "FIS"?
Useful next steps
You've compared "fails" and "FIS". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "fails" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "FIS" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #226,794 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "fails" and "FIS" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "FIS vs foh". 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 #226,794 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.