lacetvslacetsWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#29,015
“lacet” frequency rank
#19,053
“lacets” frequency rank
48068
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lacet lacets
Definition Nœud coulant avec lequel on prend les perdrix, les lièvres, etc. Pluriel de lacet.

Same sound, different letters: lacet vs lacets

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. lacet runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against lacets's 6 (CVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
lacet
6 ch
lacets

Ear matches; page differs - lacet and lacets

This is the hard kind. lacet and lacets are pronounced identically (\la.sɛ\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “lacet” sits inside “lacets”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48068, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lacet is recorded at frequency rank #29,015, classified as anoun, pronounced \la.sɛ\. lacets is at rank #19,053, tagged as anoun, pronounced \la.sɛ\.

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 48068, this pair ranks #181,920 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of lacet vs lacets

Shared letters: acelt. Private to "lacet": -. Private to "lacets": s.

"lacet" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "lacets" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lacet ← alcet · laccet · lacett · lacte · laect · lcaet · llacet
  • lacets ← alcets · laccets · lacest · lacetss · lacetts · lactes · laects · lcaets

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "lacet" and "lacets" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\la.sɛ\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "lacet" vs "lacets" - which ranks higher?
"lacets" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,053 in our French list, against #29,015 for "lacet". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "lacet" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lacets" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #181,920 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lacet" and "lacets" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lacet vs lancet". 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 #181,920 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