face
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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4 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "face", 4-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "face" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "face" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
face is aEnglishnoun. It means: The front part of the head of a human or other animal, featuring the eyes, nose, and mouth, and the surrounding area. Pronounced /feɪs/. It ranks #335 in English word frequency. Often confused with Fe and far.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | face |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /feɪs/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #335 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for face is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /feɪs/. Corpus data places it at rank #335 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 28 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 5 documented wrong-spelling variants for face, with forms such as "afce", "facce", and "faec". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "Fe", "far", "fan", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁-? Late Latin faciēs Late Latin facia Old French facebor. Middle English face English face From Middle English face, from Old French face, from Late Latin facia, from Latin faciēs (“form, appearance”). Doublet of fac… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is face, spelled F-A-C-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The front part of the head of a human or other animal, featuring the eyes, nose, and mouth, and the surrounding area.
- 2One's facial expression.
- 3A distorted facial expression; an expression of displeasure, insult, etc.
- 4The amount expressed on a bill, note, bond, etc., without any interest or discount; face value.
- 5The mouth.
- 6Makeup; one's complete facial cosmetic application.
- 7Public image; outward appearance.
- 8Good reputation; standing, in the eyes of others; dignity; prestige.
- 9Shameless confidence; boldness; effrontery.
- 10An aspect of the character or nature of someone or something.
- 11Presence; sight; front.
- 12A person; the self; (reflexively) oneself.
- 13A familiar or well-known person; a member of a particular scene, such as the music or fashion scene.
- 14A headlining wrestler with a persona embodying heroic or virtuous traits and who is regarded as a "good guy", especially one who is handsome and well-conditioned; a baby face.
- 15The frontal aspect of something.
- 16The frontal aspect of something.
- 17The directed force of something.
- 18Any surface, especially a front or outer one.
- 19Any of the flat bounding surfaces of a polyhedron; more generally, any of the bounding pieces of a polytope of any dimension.
- 20The front surface of a bat.
- 21The part of a golf club that hits the ball.
- 22The head of a lion, shown face-on and cut off immediately behind the ears.
- 23The side of the card that shows its value (as opposed to the back side, which looks the same on all cards of the deck).
- 24The player character, especially as opposed to minions or other entities which might absorb damage instead of the player character.
- 25The width of a pulley, or the length of a cog from end to end.
- 26The exposed surface of the mineral deposit where it is being mined. Also the exposed end surface of a tunnel where digging may still be in progress.
- 27A typeface.
- 28A mode of regard, whether favourable or unfavourable; favour or anger.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁-? Late Latin faciēs Late Latin facia Old French facebor. Middle English face English face From Middle English face, from Old French face, from Late Latin facia, from Latin faciēs (“form, appearance”). Doublet of facies. Displaced native onlete (“face, countenance, appearance”), anleth (“face”), from Old English anwlite, andwlita, compare German Antlitz; Old English ansīen (“face”), Middle English neb (“face, nose”) (from Old English nebb), Middle English ler, leor, leer (“face, cheek, countenance”) (from Old English hlēor), and non-native Middle English vis (“face, appearance, look”) (from Old French vis) and Middle English chere (“face”) from Old French chere. In the sense of face as in reputation, influenced by Chinese 面子 (miànzi) or 臉／脸 (liǎn), both of which mean literally the front of the head and metaphorically one's public image. See lose face.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: afce,facce,faec,fcae,fface
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for face
Misspelling Variants of "face"
Frequency rank: #335 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter F in our English index: