fasvsfassesWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: fas is a noun, fasses is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“fas” is a noun and “fasses” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#47,890
“fas” frequency rank
#13,380
“fasses” frequency rank
61270
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fas fasses
Definition Face, figure, visage. Deuxième personne du singulier du présent du subjonctif de faire.

Same sound, different letters: fas vs fasses

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 3 letters. fas runs 3 letters (CVC) against fasses's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
fas
6 ch
fasses

Same sound, different spelling - fas / fasses

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: fas and fasses carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ˈfasː\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 3 extra letter(s) - “fas” sits inside “fasses”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 61270, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fas is recorded at frequency rank #47,890, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈfasː\. fasses is at rank #13,380, tagged as averb, pronounced \fas\.

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 61270, this pair ranks #93,159 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of fas vs fasses

Shared letters: afs. Private to "fas": -. Private to "fasses": e.

"fas" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "fasses" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fassesafsses · fasess · fassess · fassse · ffasses · fsases

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "fas" and "fasses" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fas" is a noun and "fasses" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "fas" or "fasses" show up more?
"fasses" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,380 in our French list, against #47,890 for "fas". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've separated the homophone pair "fas" / "fasses". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "fas" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fasses" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #93,159 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fas" and "fasses" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fas 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 #93,159 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