loi

\lwa\

/\lwa\/ noun

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

The verdict

“loi” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #300) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#300
frequency rank, French
2,567
“L” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Règle, obligations écrites, prescrites ou tacites, auxquelles les personnes se doivent de se conformer.

Corpus desk

Index FR-loi · loi · French

loi · rank #300 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-CORE #300
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 2,567
  • PHOTO-FINISH aucun

Nearest frequency peer: aucun (-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.

Frequency neighbourhood for “loi”

Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)

corpus weight

What this shows Bars show where “loi” sits against the nearest ranked French headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.

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).

loi vs Lu
0% similar
loi vs LR
0% similar
loi vs LT
0% similar

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

Key facts for loi
PropertyValue
Headwordloi
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\lwa\
Letters3
Frequency rank#300
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Où “loi” se place dans la fréquence du français

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).loise place ici:

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

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « aucun » (#299), « parti » (#301), « vois » (#298). Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for loi is neighbouring look-alikes ("Lu", "LR", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \lwa\. Frequency #300 among 2,567 “L” headwords. 9 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

No misspelling variants are generated for loi in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "Lu", "LR", "LT", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.

This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is loi, spelled L-O-I.

Definition

  1. 1
    Règle, obligations écrites, prescrites ou tacites, auxquelles les personnes se doivent de se conformer.
  2. 2
    Prescription de l’autorité législative (État, Union européenne, jurisprudence ou usages) qui règle, ordonne, permet ou défend.
  3. 3
    Toute règle qui est reçue dans le pays et qui y a force de loi, soit qu’elle ait rapport au gouvernement général, soit qu’elle fixe le droit des particuliers.
  4. 4
    Puissance ; autorité.
  5. 5
    Ensemble des règles de conduite émanant de Dieu ou de ses représentants sur la terre ; les livres sacrés recensant lesdites règles.
  6. 6
    Postulat ou énoncé vrai sous certaines conditions.
  7. 7
    Probabilité sur R associée à une variable aléatoire réelle, aussi appelée loi de probabilité.
  8. 8
    Ce qui règle l’ordre du monde physique.
  9. 9
    L’une des deux forces du monde, relative à l’ordre par opposition au chaos, dans certaines fictions fantastiques.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Tout est assujetti ici bas aux loix de la nature : les hommes sont doués de l’intelligence nécessaire pour les connoître & les observer ; […].
  2. Dans ses discours, il défendit avec force cette thèse que la stricte observance des lois religieuses doit s’accompagner, pour devenir méritoire, de la pratique de la justice et de l’amour du prochain, envers les juifs comme envers les non-juifs.

Synonyms

législationréglement

This word in other languages

act(English)ley(Español)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 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "loi"?
"loi" is spelled L-O-I. The IPA pronunciation is \lwa\.
What does "loi" mean?
As a noun, "loi" means: Règle, obligations écrites, prescrites ou tacites, auxquelles les personnes se doivent de se conformer.
What words are commonly confused with "loi"?
"loi" is commonly confused with "Lu", "LR", "LT". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "loi"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "loi" is \lwa\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "loi" come from?
"loi" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
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 French words by spelling shape

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

Same letter count

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

tes#297eau#287jeu#267mis#339

What to do next

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PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

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.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list