flyervsfrayerWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#42,882
“flyer” frequency rank
#28,961
“frayer” frequency rank
71843
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature flyer frayer
Definition Déguerpir, partir rapidement. Ouvrir une voie, rendre praticable un chemin, une route ; en écarter les obstacles.

Where the eye mixes flyer and frayer

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

5 ch
flyer
6 ch
frayer

Visual trap between flyer and frayer

A purely visual mix-up. flyer (\fla.je\) and frayer (\fʁɛ.je\) 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 71843, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

flyer is recorded at frequency rank #42,882, classified as averb, pronounced \fla.je\. frayer is at rank #28,961, tagged as averb, pronounced \fʁɛ.je\.

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 71843, this pair ranks #46,078 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of flyer vs frayer

Shared letters: efry. Private to "flyer": l. Private to "frayer": a.

"flyer" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC  ·  "frayer" · 6 letters · shape CCVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • flyer ← fflyer · fleyr · fllyer · flyerr · flyre · flyyer · fyler · lfyer
  • frayer ← faryer · ffrayer · fraeyr · frayerr · frayre · frayyer · frrayer · fryaer

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "flyer" for "frayer" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\fla.je\ versus \fʁɛ.je\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "flyer" vs "frayer" - which ranks higher?
"frayer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,961 in our French list, against #42,882 for "flyer". 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 "flyer" and "frayer" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "flyer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "frayer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #46,078 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "flyer" and "frayer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "flour vs flyer". 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 #46,078 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