Laos
\la.ɔs\
The verdict
“Laos” is a moderately-common French word, ranked #21,374 in French word frequency and used as a proper noun.
- #21,374
- frequency rank, French
- 4
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Pays enclavé d’Asie du Sud-Est, enclavé entre la Birmanie, la Thaïlande, le Cambodge, le Viêt Nam et la Chine. Sa capitale est Vientiane.
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 | Laos |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| IPA | \la.ɔs\ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #21,374 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “Laos” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for Laos is 4 letters long, classified as a proper noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \la.ɔs\. Corpus data places it at rank #21,374 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Pays enclavé d’Asie du Sud-Est, enclavé entre la Birmanie, la Thaïlande, le Cambodge, le Viêt Nam et la Chine. Sa capitale est Vientiane.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for Laos, with forms such as "alos", "laoss", and "laso". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "lo", "LS", "les", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct French form is Laos, spelled L-A-O-S.
Definition
- 1Pays enclavé d’Asie du Sud-Est, enclavé entre la Birmanie, la Thaïlande, le Cambodge, le Viêt Nam et la Chine. Sa capitale est Vientiane.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: alos,laoss,laso,llaos,loas
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of Laos - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "Laos"?
What does "Laos" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "Laos"?
How do you pronounce "Laos"?
What language does "Laos" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “Laos”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is L-A-O-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \la.ɔs\ (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. Laos vs lo
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French 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.