Which to use
“face” and “fas” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #311
- “face” frequency rank
- #47,890
- “fas” frequency rank
- 48201
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | face | fas |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Visage. | Face, figure, visage. |
Same sound, different letters: face vs fas
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 2 letters. face runs 4 letters (CVCV) against fas's 3 (CVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Ear matches; page differs - face and fas
This is the hard kind. face and fas are pronounced identically (\fas\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48201, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
face is recorded at frequency rank #311, classified as anoun, pronounced \fas\. fas is at rank #47,890, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈfasː\.
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 48201, this pair ranks #180,826 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of face vs fas
Shared letters: af. Private to "face": ce. Private to "fas": s.
"face" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "fas" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- face ← afce · facce · faec · fcae · fface
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "face" and "fas" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary French text, does "face" or "fas" show up more?
What to do next
Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.
- Full dictionary entry for "face" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "fas" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #180,826 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "face" and "fas" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fas vs Fee". 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 #180,826 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.