farovsfastWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: faro is a noun, fast is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“faro” is a noun and “fast” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#46,163
“faro” frequency rank
#8,544
“fast” frequency rank
54707
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature faro fast
Definition Espèce de bière fortement alcoolisée qui se fabrique particulièrement à Bruxelles et dans les environs. On utilise de la bière lambic à laquelle on rajoute du sucre candi pour lancer une seconde fermentation. Presque, quasiment.

Where the eye mixes faro and fast

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
faro
4 ch
fast

Look-alike desk: faro vs fast

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: faro is \fa.ʁo\ while fast is \fast\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54707, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

faro is recorded at frequency rank #46,163, classified as anoun, pronounced \fa.ʁo\. fast is at rank #8,544, tagged as anadv, pronounced \fast\.

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 54707, this pair ranks #132,218 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of faro vs fast

Shared letters: af. Private to "faro": or. Private to "fast": st.

"faro" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "fast" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • farofaor · farro · ffaro · frao
  • fastafst · fasst · fastt · fats · ffast · fsat

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "faro" for "fast" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "faro" is a noun and "fast" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "faro" or "fast" show up more?
"fast" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,544 in our French list, against #46,163 for "faro". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "faro" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fast" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #132,218 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "faro" and "fast" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "faro vs FPR". 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 #132,218 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