loyal
\lwa.jal\
The verdict
“loyal” is a moderately-common French word, ranked #15,670 in French word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #15,670
- frequency rank, French
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 13
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Qui montre de la loyauté ; qui est sincère, droit, franc, plein d’honneur et de probité.
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 | loyal |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \lwa.jal\ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #15,670 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 13 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “loyal” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for loyal is 5 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \lwa.jal\. Corpus data places it at rank #15,670 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for loyal, with forms such as "lloyal", "loayl", and "loyall". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 13 confusable-pair relationships, "loyer", "loyaux", "loyale", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, 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 loyal, spelled L-O-Y-A-L.
Definition
- 1Qui montre de la loyauté ; qui est sincère, droit, franc, plein d’honneur et de probité.
- 2Qui est conforme à la loi ; par la loi.
Antonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: lloyal,loayl,loyall,loyla,loyyal,lyoal,olyal
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of loyal - 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
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Using “loyal”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is L-O-Y-A-L - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \lwa.jal\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “loyer” - see the side-by-side comparison. loyal vs loyer
- 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.