face
/feɪs/
"face" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“face” has 5 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #335. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #335
- frequency rank, English
- 2,507
- “F” headwords
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The front part of the head of a human or other animal, featuring the eyes, nose, and mouth, and the surrounding area.
Corpus desk
Index EN-face · face · English
face · rank #335 · 5 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-CORE #335
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-MID 5 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,507
- PHOTO-FINISH car
Nearest frequency peer: car (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbourhood for “face”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- war
war
99,669 corpus weight
- whole
whole
99,668 corpus weight
- car
car
99,667 corpus weight
- face
face
99,666 corpus weight
- five
five
99,665 corpus weight
- kind
kind
99,664 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “face” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| 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) |
Where “face” sits in English frequency
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 5 spelling variants around face (IPA /feɪs/), anoun. Corpus frequency is #335 among 2,507 “F” headwords. Wiktionary lists 28 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for face, with forms such as "afce", "facce", and "faec". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "Fe", "far", "fan", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
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… The correct English form is face, spelled F-A-C-E.
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.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how face appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
That girl has a pretty face.
The monkey pressed its face against the railings.
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
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of face - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of September 3, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "face"?
What does "face" mean?
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "face", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (5 here; floor ≥5).
What to do next
You've looked up "face". Here's where to go from here.
- "face" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "Fe". View pair
- 5 edit-distance misspelling variants are generated for spell-check research on this headword. See variants
- Usage frequency rank #335 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more English words in the "F" letter cohort. F–Z browse
- PlainSpell rotates a curated Word of the Day from the English corpus, a passive way to discover vocabulary. Word of the Day
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.