facesvsfarceConfusable pair

Which to use

“faces” and “farce” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#10,157
“faces” frequency rank
#11,968
“farce” frequency rank
22125
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature faces farce
Definition Pluriel de face. Hachis d’ingrédients épicés que l’on introduit dans le ventre vidé de ses entrailles de l’animal destiné à être cuit entier, ou dans un organe creux d’un animal, dans les pâtés, etc.

Where the eye mixes faces and farce

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
faces
5 ch
farce

Visual trap between faces and farce

A purely visual mix-up. faces (\fas\) and farce (\faʁs\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22125, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

faces is recorded at frequency rank #10,157, classified as anoun, pronounced \fas\. farce is at rank #11,968, tagged as anoun, pronounced \faʁs\.

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 22125, this pair ranks #359,712 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of faces vs farce

Shared letters: acef. Private to "faces": s. Private to "farce": r.

"faces" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "farce" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • facesafces · facces · facess · facse · faecs · fcaes · ffaces
  • farceafrce · facre · farcce · farec · farrce · ffarce · frace

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "faces" for "farce" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\fas\ versus \faʁs\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "faces" vs "farce" - which ranks higher?
"faces" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,157 in our French list, against #11,968 for "farce". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "faces" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "farce" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #359,712 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "faces" and "farce" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fange vs farce". 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 #359,712 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list