fastevsfausseTell them apart

Which to use

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

#23,550
“faste” frequency rank
#2,924
“fausse” frequency rank
26474
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature faste fausse
Definition Propice, favorable, heureux, où tout réussit. Féminin singulier de faux.

Where the eye mixes faste and fausse

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. faste runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against fausse's 6 (CVVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
faste
6 ch
fausse

Look-alike desk: faste vs fausse

A purely visual mix-up. faste (\fast\) and fausse (\fos\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26474, 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\. fausse is at rank #2,924, tagged as anadj, pronounced \fos\.

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 26474, this pair ranks #334,788 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of faste vs fausse

Shared letters: aefs. Private to "faste": t. Private to "fausse": u.

"faste" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "fausse" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fasteafste · faset · fasste · fastte · fatse · ffaste · fsate
  • fausseafusse · fasuse · fause · fauses · ffausse · fuasse

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "faste" for "fausse" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\fast\ versus \fos\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "faste" or "fausse"?
"fausse" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,924 in our French list, against #23,550 for "faste". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "faste" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fausse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #334,788 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "faste" and "fausse" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fange vs faste". 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 #334,788 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