Which to use
“faulty” is an adjective and “fealty” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #12,596
- “faulty” frequency rank
- #44,778
- “fealty” frequency rank
- 57374
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | faulty | fealty |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Having or displaying faults; not perfect; not adequate or acceptable. | Fidelity to one's lord or master; the feudal obligation by which the tenant or vassal was bound to be faithful to his lord. |
Where the eye mixes faulty and fealty
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. faulty and fealty follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses faulty with fealty
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: faulty is /ˈfɒlti/ while fealty is /ˈfiː.əlti/. 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 57374, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
faulty is recorded at frequency rank #12,596, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈfɒlti/. fealty is at rank #44,778, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈfiː.əlti/.
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 57374, this pair ranks #119,746 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of faulty vs fealty
Shared letters: aflty. Private to "faulty": u. Private to "fealty": e.
"faulty" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV · "fealty" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "faulty" and "fealty" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "faulty" or "fealty"?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "faulty" and "fealty" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "faulty" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "fealty" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #119,746 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "faulty" and "fealty" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fealty vs feely". 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 #119,746 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.