fasvsfíaWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: fas is a noun, fía is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“fas” is a noun and “fía” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#27,227
“fas” frequency rank
#40,850
“fía” frequency rank
68077
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fas fía
Definition Cara, faz, haz, jeta, rostro. Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del presente de indicativo de fiar.

Where the eye mixes fas and fía

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. fas (CVC) and fía (CVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

3 ch
fas
3 ch
fía

Visual trap between fas and fía

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: fas is /ˈfasː/ while fía is [ˈfia]. 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 (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68077, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fas is recorded at frequency rank #27,227, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈfasː/. fía is at rank #40,850, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈfia].

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 68077, this pair ranks #35,441 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of fas vs fía

Shared letters: af. Private to "fas": s. Private to "fía": í.

"fas" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "fía" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "fas" for "fía" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fas" is a noun and "fía" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "fas" or "fía" show up more?
"fas" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,227 in our Spanish list, against #40,850 for "fía". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "fas" and "fía" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "fas" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fía" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #35,441 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fas" and "fía" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fía vs fora". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #35,441 of 323,831 scored Spanish pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list