fâchéevsfatherWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: fâchée is a adjective, father is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“fâchée” is an adjective and “father” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#27,452
“fâchée” frequency rank
#42,872
“father” frequency rank
70324
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fâchée father
Definition Féminin singulier de fâché. Père.

Where the eye mixes fâchée and father

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. fâchée (CVCCVV) and father (CVCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
fâchée
6 ch
father

Look-alike desk: fâchée vs father

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: fâchée is \fɑ.ʃe\ while father is \ˈfɑ.ðɚ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 4 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 70324, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fâchée is recorded at frequency rank #27,452, classified as anadj, pronounced \fɑ.ʃe\. father is at rank #42,872, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈfɑ.ðɚ\.

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 70324, this pair ranks #51,738 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of fâchée vs father

Shared letters: efh. Private to "fâchée": câé. Private to "father": art.

"fâchée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "father" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • father ← afther · fahter · fatehr · fatherr · fathher · fathre · fatther · ffather

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "fâchée" and "father" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fâchée" is an adjective and "father" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "fâchée" or "father"?
"fâchée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,452 in our French list, against #42,872 for "father". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "fâchée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "father" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #51,738 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fâchée" and "father" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "father vs Favier". 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 #51,738 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