ley

[ˈlej]

/[ˈlej]/ noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“ley” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #204) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#204
frequency rank, Spanish
2,069
“L” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Disposición, regla o precepto dictado por la máxima autoridad.

Corpus desk

Index ES-ley · ley · Spanish

ley · rank #204 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-CORE #204
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 2,069
  • PHOTO-FINISH unos

Nearest frequency peer: unos (-1 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Vecinos de frecuencia del confusable “ley”

Pares de peso similar en el corpus, aparte de los confusables abajo

corpus weight

What this shows Las barras sitúan “ley” frente a los lemas españoles más cercanos por rango, no un reprint del escritorio de confusables.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

ley vs lo
33% similar
ley vs li
33% similar
ley vs Lu
0% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for ley
PropertyValue
Headwordley
LanguageSpanish
Part of speechNoun
IPA[ˈlej]
Letters3
Frequency rank#204
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rango de corpus junto a confusables de “ley”

La frecuencia va del puñado de palabras que usamos sin parar (izquierda) a la cola larga que apenas aparece (derecha).leycae aquí:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

La escala es logarítmica (cada marca ≈ 10× más rara). En la misma franja de rareza aparecen “unos” (#203), “medio” (#205), “nombre” (#202). Entre 2,069 lemas con “L”, “ley” va en #204. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for ley is neighbouring look-alikes ("lo", "li", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced [ˈlej]. Frequency #204 among 2,069 “L” headwords. 10 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

ley doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "lo", "li", "Lu", 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, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct Spanish form is ley, spelled L-E-Y.

Definition

  1. 1
    Disposición, regla o precepto dictado por la máxima autoridad.
  2. 2
    Conjunto de leyes que se refieren a una materia.
  3. 3
    Conjunto de normas que rigen la sociedad.
  4. 4
    Relación entre los elementos de un fenómeno físico.
  5. 5
    Regla constante y natural que rige un fenómeno físico.
  6. 6
    Norma moral que debe cumplirse en la sociedad.
  7. 7
    Norma dictada por el poder.
  8. 8
    Conducta dictada por una religión, o la religión misma.
  9. 9
    Normas que rigen solo en un ámbito determinado.
  10. 10
    Proporción en que un metal noble entra en las aleaciones, expresado en milésimas.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how ley appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. «En otras palabras, la ley sólo propone las condiciones bajo las cuales puede ser realizada y garantizada la igualdad de las personas y de las propiedades».
  2. La ley del tránsito

This word in other languages

law(English)loi(Français)Gesetz(Deutsch)

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

How do you spell "ley"?
"ley" is spelled L-E-Y. The IPA pronunciation is [ˈlej].
What does "ley" mean?
As a noun, "ley" means: Disposición, regla o precepto dictado por la máxima autoridad.
What words are commonly confused with "ley"?
"ley" is commonly confused with "lo", "li", "Lu". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "ley"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "ley" is [ˈlej]. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "ley" come from?
"ley" is a Spanish word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar Spanish words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "ley", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked Spanish headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

mal#193Tal#191fin#222tus#230

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list