fastevsfastesWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: faste is a adjective, fastes is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“faste” is an adjective and “fastes” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#23,550
“faste” frequency rank
#36,387
“fastes” frequency rank
59937
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature faste fastes
Definition Propice, favorable, heureux, où tout réussit. Tables ou livres du calendrier où étaient indiqués les jours de fêtes, d’assemblées publiques, de jeux.

Same sound, different letters: faste vs fastes

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. faste runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against fastes's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
faste
6 ch
fastes

Ear matches; page differs - faste and fastes

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: faste and fastes carry the same recorded pronunciation, \fast\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other anoun, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “faste” sits inside “fastes”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59937, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

faste is recorded at frequency rank #23,550, classified as anadj, pronounced \fast\. fastes is at rank #36,387, tagged as anoun, 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 59937, this pair ranks #100,353 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of faste vs fastes

Shared letters: aefst. Private to "faste": -. Private to "fastes": -.

"faste" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "fastes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • faste ← afste · faset · fasste · fastte · fatse · ffaste · fsate
  • fastes ← afstes · fasets · fasstes · fastess · fastse · fasttes · fatses · ffastes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "faste" for "fastes" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "faste" is an adjective and "fastes" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "faste" or "fastes"?
"faste" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,550 in our French list, against #36,387 for "fastes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

"faste" and "fastes" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "faste" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fastes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #100,353 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "faste" and "fastes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fakes vs fastes". 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 #100,353 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