Which to use
“ladies” and “laines” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #29,018
- “ladies” frequency rank
- #41,376
- “laines” frequency rank
- 70394
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | ladies | laines |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel de lady. | Pluriel de laine. |
Where the eye mixes ladies and laines
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. ladies (CVCVVC) and laines (CVVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Visual trap between ladies and laines
A purely visual mix-up. ladies (\le.di\) and laines (\lɛn\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 70394, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
ladies is recorded at frequency rank #29,018, classified as anoun, pronounced \le.di\. laines is at rank #41,376, tagged as anoun, pronounced \lɛn\.
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 70394, this pair ranks #51,458 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of ladies vs laines
Shared letters: aeils. Private to "ladies": d. Private to "laines": n.
"ladies" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC · "laines" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "ladies" and "laines" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "ladies" vs "laines" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "ladies" and "laines" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "ladies" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "laines" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #51,458 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "ladies" and "laines" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "laines vs linges". 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 #51,458 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.