Which to use
“lawn” is a noun and “lay” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #7,358
- “lawn” frequency rank
- #2,302
- “lay” frequency rank
- 9660
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | lawn | lay |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Ground (generally in front of or around a house) covered with grass kept closely mown. | To place down in a position of rest, or in a horizontal position. |
Where the eye mixes lawn and lay
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. lawn runs 4 letters (CVCC) against lay's 3 (CVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses lawn with lay
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: lawn is /lɔːn/ while lay is /leɪ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9660, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
lawn is recorded at frequency rank #7,358, classified as anoun, pronounced /lɔːn/. lay is at rank #2,302, tagged as averb, pronounced /leɪ/.
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 9660, this pair ranks #496,263 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of lawn vs lay
Shared letters: al. Private to "lawn": nw. Private to "lay": y.
"lawn" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "lay" · 3 letters · shape CVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- lawn ← alwn · lanw · lawnn · lawwn · llawn · lwan
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "lawn" for "lay" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "lawn" or "lay" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "lawn" and "lay" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "lawn" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "lay" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #496,263 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "lawn" and "lay" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lav vs lawn". 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 #496,263 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.