fakesvsfautesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#48,524
“fakes” frequency rank
#4,233
“fautes” frequency rank
52757
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fakes fautes
Definition Pluriel de fake. Pluriel de faute.

Where the eye mixes fakes and fautes

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

5 ch
fakes
6 ch
fautes

Look-alike desk: fakes vs fautes

A purely visual mix-up. fakes (\fɛk\) and fautes (\fot\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52757, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fakes is recorded at frequency rank #48,524, classified as anoun, pronounced \fɛk\. fautes is at rank #4,233, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fot\.

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 52757, this pair ranks #145,515 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of fakes vs fautes

Shared letters: aefs. Private to "fakes": k. Private to "fautes": tu.

"fakes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "fautes" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fakesafkes · faeks · fakess · fakkes · fakse · ffakes · fkaes
  • fautesafutes · fatues · fauets · fautess · fautse · fauttes · ffautes · fuates

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "fakes" for "fautes" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\fɛk\ versus \fot\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "fakes" vs "fautes" - which ranks higher?
"fautes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,233 in our French list, against #48,524 for "fakes". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "fakes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fautes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #145,515 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fakes" and "fautes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fage vs fakes". 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 #145,515 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