farcesvsfautesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#31,487
“farces” frequency rank
#4,233
“fautes” frequency rank
35720
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature farces fautes
Definition Pluriel de farce. Pluriel de faute.

Where the eye mixes farces and fautes

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

6 ch
farces
6 ch
fautes

Look-alike desk: farces vs fautes

A purely visual mix-up. farces (\faʁs\) 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 share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35720, 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\. 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 35720, this pair ranks #274,729 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of farces vs fautes

Shared letters: aefs. Private to "farces": cr. Private to "fautes": tu.

"farces" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "fautes" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • farcesafrces · facres · farcces · farcess · farcse · farecs · farrces · ffarces
  • fautesafutes · fatues · fauets · fautess · fautse · fauttes · ffautes · fuates

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "farces" for "fautes" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\faʁs\ versus \fot\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "farces" 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 #31,487 for "farces". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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 "fautes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #274,729 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "farces" and "fautes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "farces vs Farnèse". 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 #274,729 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