Which to use
“facile” is an adjective and “fécule” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #654
- “facile” frequency rank
- #46,779
- “fécule” frequency rank
- 47433
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | facile | fécule |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qui se fait sans peine. | Poudre blanche à très forte teneur en amidon, qui provient de certaines racines ou de certaines graines. |
Where the eye mixes facile and fécule
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. facile and fécule follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between facile and fécule
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: facile is \fa.sil\ while fécule is \fe.kyl\. 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 (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47433, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
facile is recorded at frequency rank #654, classified as anadj, pronounced \fa.sil\. fécule is at rank #46,779, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fe.kyl\.
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 47433, this pair ranks #186,989 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of facile vs fécule
Shared letters: cefl. Private to "facile": ai. Private to "fécule": ué.
"facile" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV · "fécule" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- facile ← afcile · faccile · faciel · facille · faclie · faicle · fcaile · ffacile
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "facile" for "fécule" ever safe?
Which is more common, "facile" or "fécule"?
Useful next steps
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "facile" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "fécule" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #186,989 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "facile" and "fécule" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fécule vs female". 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 #186,989 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.