facevsfradeTell them apart

Which to use

“face” and “frade” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#1,395
“face” frequency rank
#30,162
“frade” frequency rank
31557
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature face frade
Definition parte do corpo humano onde se encontram os olhos, nariz e boca membro de uma ordem religiosa, em especial as ordens franciscanas, dominicanas, carmelitas e augustinianas; freire

Letter map: face vs frade

Shared letters muted; letters that set face and frade apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

4 ch
face
5 ch
frade

Corpus notes: face and frade

face and frade are indexed as a confusable Portuguese pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31557, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

face is recorded at frequency rank #1,395, classified as anoun. frade is at rank #30,162, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈfɾa.dɨ/.

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 31557, this pair ranks #36,485 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of face vs frade

Shared letters: aef. Private to "face": c. Private to "frade": dr.

"face" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "frade" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • faceafce · facce · faec · fcae · fface
  • fradefarde · ffrade · fradde · fraed · frdae · frrade · rfade

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "face" and "frade" be used interchangeably?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "face" or "frade" show up more?
"face" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,395 in our Portuguese list, against #30,162 for "frade". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

You've compared "face" and "frade". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "face" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "frade" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #36,485 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "face" and "frade" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "frade vs Frau". 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 #36,485 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list