en face à face
\ɑ̃ fa.s‿a fas\
The verdict
“en face à face” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as an adverb - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 14
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Dans une situation où deux personnes sont l’une devant l’autre ou l’une vis-à-vis l’autre.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | en face à face |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| IPA | \ɑ̃ fa.s‿a fas\ |
| Letters | 14 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “en face à face” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for en face à face is 14 letters long, classified as an adverb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \ɑ̃ fa.s‿a fas\. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
en face à face has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is en face à face, spelled E-N- -F-A-C-E- -À- -F-A-C-E.
Definition
- 1Dans une situation où deux personnes sont l’une devant l’autre ou l’une vis-à-vis l’autre.
- 2En présence physique de l’autre, par opposition à un contact par téléphone ou par Internet.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “en face à face”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is E-N- -F-A-C-E- -À- -F-A-C-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \ɑ̃ fa.s‿a fas\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
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.