lay

adj

Letters

3 characters

Frequency Rank

#27,500

in French word usage

Misspellings

0

tracked variants

Confusables

20

similar word pairs

lay is anFrenchadj. It means: Variante de lé. Often confused with le and Lu.

Key facts for lay
PropertyValue
Headwordlay
LanguageFrench
Part of speechAdj
Letters3
Frequency rank#27,500
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of lay in French word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for lay is 3 letters long, classified as anadj. Corpus data places it at rank #27,500 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Variante de lé.".

No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for lay in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable French patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "le", "Lu", "Li", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

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. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is lay, spelled L-A-Y, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Variante de lé.

Frequency rank: #27,500 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "lay"?
"lay" is spelled L-A-Y.
What does "lay" mean?
As an adj, "lay" means: Variante de lé.
What words are commonly confused with "lay"?
"lay" is commonly confused with "le", "Lu", "Li". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
What language does "lay" come from?
"lay" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
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.

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter L in our French index:

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.