farcesvsfareTell them apart

Which to use

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

#31,487
“farces” frequency rank
#45,039
“fare” frequency rank
76526
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature farces fare
Definition Pluriel de farce. Pêche solennelle que les pêcheurs faisaient pour leur fête, vers le mois de mai, et qui fut interdite en 1670, parce qu’elle dépeuplait les rivières.

Where the eye mixes farces and fare

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

6 ch
farces
4 ch
fare

Look-alike desk: farces vs fare

A purely visual mix-up. farces (\faʁs\) and fare (\faʁ\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 76526, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

farces is recorded at frequency rank #31,487, classified as anoun, pronounced \faʁs\. fare is at rank #45,039, tagged as anoun, pronounced \faʁ\.

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 76526, this pair ranks #30,880 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of farces vs fare

Shared letters: aefr. Private to "farces": cs. Private to "fare": -.

"farces" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "fare" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • farcesafrces · facres · farcces · farcess · farcse · farecs · farrces · ffarces
  • fareafre · farre · ffare · frae

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "farces" for "fare" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\faʁs\ versus \faʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "farces" or "fare"?
"farces" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #31,487 in our French list, against #45,039 for "fare". 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 "farces" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fare" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #30,880 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "farces" and "fare" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fare vs Fee". 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 #30,880 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