lacetvslancerWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: lacet is a noun, lancer is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“lacet” is a noun and “lancer” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#29,015
“lacet” frequency rank
#1,742
“lancer” frequency rank
30757
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lacet lancer
Definition Nœud coulant avec lequel on prend les perdrix, les lièvres, etc. Jeter en avant avec force, avec raideur, pour atteindre au loin.

Where the eye mixes lacet and lancer

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

5 ch
lacet
6 ch
lancer

Visual trap between lacet and lancer

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: lacet is \la.sɛ\ while lancer is \lɑ̃.se\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30757, 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\. lancer is at rank #1,742, tagged as averb, pronounced \lɑ̃.se\.

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 30757, this pair ranks #308,193 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of lacet vs lancer

Shared letters: acel. Private to "lacet": t. Private to "lancer": nr.

"lacet" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "lancer" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lacetalcet · laccet · lacett · lacte · laect · lcaet · llacet
  • lanceralncer · lacner · lanccer · lancerr · lancre · lanecr · lanncer · llancer

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "lacet" and "lancer" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "lacet" is a noun and "lancer" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "lacet" or "lancer" show up more?
"lancer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,742 in our French list, against #29,015 for "lacet". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "lacet" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lancer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #308,193 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lacet" and "lancer" 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 #308,193 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