farevsfèveTell them apart

Which to use

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

#45,039
“fare” frequency rank
#37,822
“fève” frequency rank
82861
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fare fève
Definition 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. Nom vernaculaire de Vicia faba, plante herbacées annuelle de la famille des Fabacées (Fabaceae, au port érigé, pouvant atteindre 2 mètre de haut et que l’on cultive pour sa graine comestible.

Where the eye mixes fare and fève

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. fare and fève follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
fare
4 ch
fève

Visual trap between fare and fève

A purely visual mix-up. fare (\faʁ\) and fève (\fɛv\) 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 82861, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fare is recorded at frequency rank #45,039, classified as anoun, pronounced \faʁ\. fève is at rank #37,822, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fɛv\.

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 82861, this pair ranks #15,866 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of fare vs fève

Shared letters: ef. Private to "fare": ar. Private to "fève": vè.

"fare" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "fève" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fare ← afre · farre · ffare · frae

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "fare" and "fève" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\faʁ\ versus \fɛv\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "fare" vs "fève" - which ranks higher?
"fève" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #37,822 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

Eye-level mix-up between "fare" and "fève" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "fare" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fève" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #15,866 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fare" and "fève" 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 #15,866 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