Which to use
“facilité” and “fatalité” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #5,038
- “facilité” frequency rank
- #17,710
- “fatalité” frequency rank
- 22748
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | facilité | fatalité |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qualité de ce qui est fait ou employé sans peine. | Destinée inévitable. |
Where the eye mixes facilité and fatalité
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. facilité and fatalité follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses facilité with fatalité
A purely visual mix-up. facilité (\fa.si.li.te\) and fatalité (\fa.ta.li.te\) 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 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22748, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
facilité is recorded at frequency rank #5,038, classified as anoun, pronounced \fa.si.li.te\. fatalité is at rank #17,710, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fa.ta.li.te\.
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 22748, this pair ranks #356,365 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of facilité vs fatalité
Shared letters: afilté. Private to "facilité": c. Private to "fatalité": -.
"facilité" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVCV · "fatalité" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVCV
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "facilité" for "fatalité" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "facilité" or "fatalité" show up more?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "facilité" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "fatalité" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #356,365 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "facilité" and "fatalité" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fatalité vs futilité". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #356,365 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.