lay
[ˈlaj]
The verdict
“lay” is a moderately-common Spanish word, ranked #35,585 in Spanish word frequency and used as a noun.
- #35,585
- frequency rank, Spanish
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Composición poética medieval de los provenzales y de los franceses, destinada a relatar una leyenda o historia de amores, generalmente en versos cortos.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | lay |
| Language | Spanish |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | [ˈlaj] |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #35,585 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “lay” sits in Spanish frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The Spanish entry for lay is 3 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as [ˈlaj]. Corpus data places it at rank #35,585 in overall Spanish word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Composición poética medieval de los provenzales y de los franceses, destinada a relatar una leyenda o historia de amores, generalmente en versos cortos.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for lay, a sign its spelling follows regular Spanish conventions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "lo", "le", "li", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct Spanish form is lay, spelled L-A-Y.
Definition
- 1Composición poética medieval de los provenzales y de los franceses, destinada a relatar una leyenda o historia de amores, generalmente en versos cortos.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 Spanish corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “lay”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct Spanish spelling is L-A-Y - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as [ˈlaj] (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “lo” - see the side-by-side comparison. lay vs lo
- Browse more Spanish words and confusable pairs in the same reference. Spanish words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.