Which to use
“lady” is a noun and “lay” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #5,576
- “lady” frequency rank
- #27,500
- “lay” frequency rank
- 33076
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | lady | lay |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Titre qui appartient en Angleterre à l’épouse d’un lord ou d’un chevalier, et que l’on donne aussi, par courtoisie, aux filles des lords en y joignant les noms de baptême. | Variante de lé. |
Letter map: lady vs lay
Shared letters muted; letters that set lady and lay apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.
Grammar separator: lady vs lay
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: lady is anoun and layanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33076, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
lady is recorded at frequency rank #5,576, classified as anoun, pronounced \le.di\. lay is at rank #27,500, tagged as anadj.
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 33076, this pair ranks #293,004 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of lady vs lay
Shared letters: aly. Private to "lady": d. Private to "lay": -.
"lady" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "lay" · 3 letters · shape CVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- lady ← aldy · laddy · ladyy · layd · lday · llady
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "lady" and "lay" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "lady" vs "lay" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
You've compared "lady" and "lay". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "lady" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "lay" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #293,004 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "lady" and "lay" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lay vs lep". 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 #293,004 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.