glacevsglaneConfusable pair

Which to use

“glace” and “glane” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#1,954
“glace” frequency rank
#49,111
“glane” frequency rank
51065
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature glace glane
Definition ou Eau à l’état solide. Poignée d’épis que l’on ramasse dans le champ après que la moisson en a été emportée, ou que les gerbes sont liées.

Where the eye mixes glace and glane

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
glace
5 ch
glane

Look-alike desk: glace vs glane

A purely visual mix-up. glace (\ɡlas\) and glane (\ɡlan\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - c in “glace” becomes n in “glane”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51065, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

glace is recorded at frequency rank #1,954, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɡlas\. glane is at rank #49,111, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɡlan\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 51065, this pair ranks #157,859 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of glace vs glane

Shared letters: aegl. Private to "glace": c. Private to "glane": n.

"glace" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "glane" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • glacegalce · gglace · glacce · glaec · glcae · gllace · lgace
  • glanegalne · gglane · glaen · glanne · gllane · glnae · lgane

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "glace" for "glane" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ɡlas\ versus \ɡlan\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "glace" or "glane"?
"glace" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,954 in our French list, against #49,111 for "glane". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "glace" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "glane" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #157,859 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "glace" and "glane" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "glane vs glue". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #157,859 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list