facilesvsfaillesWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#6,086
“faciles” frequency rank
#12,382
“failles” frequency rank
18468
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature faciles failles
Definition Pluriel de facile. Pluriel de faille.

Where the eye mixes faciles and failles

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.

7 ch
faciles
7 ch
failles

Visual trap between faciles and failles

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: faciles is \fa.sil\ while failles is \faj\. 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 18468, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

faciles is recorded at frequency rank #6,086, classified as anadj, pronounced \fa.sil\. failles is at rank #12,382, tagged as anoun, pronounced \faj\.

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 18468, this pair ranks #378,171 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of faciles vs failles

Shared letters: aefils. Private to "faciles": c. Private to "failles": -.

"faciles" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC  ·  "failles" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • facilesafciles · facciles · faciels · faciless · facilles · facilse · faclies · faicles
  • faillesafilles · failels · failes · failless · faillse · faliles · ffailles · fialles

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "faciles" and "failles" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "faciles" is an adjective and "failles" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "faciles" or "failles" show up more?
"faciles" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,086 in our French list, against #12,382 for "failles". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "faciles" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "failles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #378,171 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "faciles" and "failles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "failles vs faires". 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 #378,171 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