FECvsfecesWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: FEC is a name, feces is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“FEC” is a name and “feces” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#33,647
“FEC” frequency rank
#21,795
“feces” frequency rank
55442
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature FEC feces
Definition Initialism of Federal Election Commission. Digested waste material (typically solid or semi-solid) discharged from a human or other mammal's stomach to the intestines; excrement.

Letter map: FEC vs feces

Shared letters muted; letters that set FEC and feces apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. FEC runs 3 letters (CVC) against feces's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
FEC
5 ch
feces

Grammar separator: FEC vs feces

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: FEC is aname and fecesanoun. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “FEC” sits inside “feces”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55442, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

FEC is recorded at frequency rank #33,647, classified as aname. feces is at rank #21,795, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈfiːsiːz/.

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 55442, this pair ranks #133,604 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of FEC vs feces

Shared letters: cef. Private to "FEC": -. Private to "feces": s.

"FEC" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "feces" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • feces ← efces · fcees · fecces · fecess · fecse · feecs · ffeces

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "FEC" and "feces" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "FEC" is a name and "feces" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "FEC" or "feces" show up more?
"feces" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,795 in our English list, against #33,647 for "FEC". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "FEC" and "feces". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "FEC" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "feces" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #133,604 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "FEC" and "feces" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "FEC 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 #133,604 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